


Feathers and Fetters

by Davechicken, ElDiablito_SF



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, BDSM, Consent Debate, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Feels, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Master/Slave, Orgasm Control, Restraints, Sexual Slavery, Suspension, Wing Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:14:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 49,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angels are simply objects for the affluent: willing slaves bought and sold to satisfy any kind of depraved sexual kink their masters choose to indulge. Bowing to peer-pressure, Crowley finally buys one of his own. However, he begins to question whether the propaganda surrounding the beautiful, naturally submissive creatures is entirely correct when he takes Castiel home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes on verse: This is a complete AU, in which there are no demons, and the 'angels' are different from angels in the SPN canon (as will become evident as you read on). While sexual slavery is a key component of this 'verse, we predominantly put the warnings in the tags because these things do transpire in the fic, but not necessarily with the main pairing and not necessarily the way you might expect. There is angel!whump, for example, but it does not happen to Cas. (It's still us, so there will still be romance!)
> 
> Additional pairings make appearances throughout the story, but we are not listing them out of a combination of sloth and not wanting to spoiler anything.
> 
>  

Crowley wandered through the rank and file of the offered specimens, idly considering this pretty face, or that pert behind. Truth be told all of the angelic stock was naturally Ganymede or Artemis, fair of face and firm of limb. There was simply too much to choose from, but as it was the 'in' thing to show your wealth and taste by owning one of the feathery body slaves, and everyone raved over their submissive, attentive demeanour and desire to please...

He was about to just spin and point and decide that way when he saw him. The one. He was tall - must be close to six foot - and those shoulders of his looked broad and strong. A firm, square jaw and shocking blue eyes. His hair was black and messy like a little stormcloud, but it suited him perfectly. But what really caught his attention were those _wings_. Raven-black with an iridescent sheen, he held them a little more proudly than some of his brood-mates. The fine black canopy was decorated with the binding. Whoever had done it was a genius: perfect white strips of the finest silk were woven diagonally from his waist up, the thread lacing over and under in a basket-style and finishing in tight, small knots at the edges of his flight feathers. It accentuated the span of them, it made the colour stark and shocking, and it made a point of the power so thoroughly restrained with nought but fabric. 

"What's he called?" he asked the saleswoman. 

She looked surprised at his choice for a moment. "Oh, him? Castiel. His name is Castiel."

"I want _him._ "

“Alright. I’ll finalise the paperwork with you.” The woman - Cecily her name badge read - cocked her head at him. “Don’t you want to examine him first?”

Oh. Right. Well possibly he should… but Crowley wasn’t sure how he’d want to pick another one, now he’d seen Castiel. There was something just… borderline arrogant in the jawline, maybe? No. He was servile, surely. It was just that he was a very nice specimen, and he certainly stood out from the other angels on display. 

“Right,” Crowley cleared his throat and tried to clear his mind. “I’m told they’re all extremely sensitive?” he asked casually, following the saleswoman to the gate separating the angels from the customers. 

She took out some kind of a pointer and indicated Castiel with it. The angel silently approached the small gate and followed them out behind a perfunctory curtain. Crowley thought it was thoughtful of the establishment to give their clients this cursory semblance of privacy in order to explore their sexual appetites (because, let’s be honest, no one bought angels to do their dishes).

“Yes, you have to be careful,” Cecily continued, gently tweaking one of the angel’s pert nipples as part of a casual demonstration. The angel gasped and Crowley watched as a small shudder ran through his long limbs. “You can over-sensitize them. Sometimes their brains get so sex-fried they lose consciousness. Unless of course,” she added with a shrug, “You’re into that kinda thing.”

The angel’s neck was long and sinuous and looked rather delicate, Crowley thought. He hoped the collars those things had to wear would at least be slender and aesthetically pleasing. It was a shame to cover up a neck like that. He reached out and gently ran his fingers along Castiel’s bicep. The angel felt warm and smooth. He felt… surprisingly normal to the touch. Crowley frowned, wondering once more whether this extravagant expense was actually worth it. His business acumen would not allow him to make a foolhardy investment merely for the sake of show. However, sometimes showmanship and salesmanship were two sides of the same coin.

“What kind of… you know… stuff… do you do with them?”

“Here’s a card,” the proprietress of the fine stock responded, slipping something into Crowley’s hand. “It’s a club. If you want to take your angel usage to the _next level_ , they could probably teach you a thing or two. If you’re into that sort of thing.” She looked him over a few times as if not convinced that Crowley was ‘into’ any sort of thing in particular. He supposed that was part of his charm, being able to pass so fluidly for your avuncular next door neighbor, while controlling a law empire that spanned entire states.

He didn’t want to look like someone who wasn’t a connoisseur of beauty, so he circled the specimen slowly, letting his fingers drag across the warm, supple flesh. The angel shuddered again as he brushed his feathers with the tips of his fingers.

“You’ll need to have the binding professionally changed, of course,” the saleswoman added.

“Of course,” Crowley agreed, admiring the intricate silk lacing that was restraining so much power with seemingly so little force. “Now, about this programming thing…” He’d heard that angels could be bound to their masters fairly simply, their default programming simply mandating that they obey all humans without additional thought. “Can it be reversed? Transferred? What if, say, I wanted to give him as a gift to someone else?”

“You can transfer ownership along with the collar, but it can’t be reversed, per se. Once they’re bound, we’ve discovered they can’t really ever be reset to factory settings. They don’t do so well without someone to guide them.”

“Is that so?” Crowley peered into the angel’s eyes, almost expecting to see tiny gears turning in there. “You’re really that daft?” he asked his future toy, earning a ‘look’ from the proprietress. Apparently you weren’t supposed to ask them even rhetorical questions. “Can he speak?”

“He can, if you want him to.”

“Hmm, yes, quite.”

Crowley was starting to catch on how this whole thing worked. Yawn.

“I’ll take him,” he finally said, as if it hadn’t all been a foregone conclusion minutes ago. (Boring or not, but the bird was stunning, and Crowley liked to collect beautiful things.) He passed his credit card to the woman, who immediately ran it through a portable check-out tablet.

“Congratulations, Mr. Crowley. You are now a proud owner of a pure-bred angel.”

Well, good. He wasn’t going to spend this kind of lavish money on some _mutt_ , was he?

“And now,” Cecily handed Crowley a collar and key, “you just have to put that on him and read from here.” She also handed him another laminated card. It only had a few words on it. 

_I am your Master. You are mine. I will take care of you._

He felt stupid saying that.

Oh, to Hell with it.

He put the collar around the bird, watching as his eyes came alive and focused on his own. He cleared his throat again. “Castiel? I am your Master. You are mine. I will take care of you.”

“Yes, Master,” the angel responded.

“You have to kiss him, to fully activate the program,” the saleswoman reminded.

_How trite_ , Crowley thought and tentatively brushed his lips against the lips of his newest purchase. There was the barest of pressure back, a give, and then his angel closed his eyes and emitted a small sigh of contentment against Crowley’s lips.

This promised to be different.

***

The drive back home was mostly uneventful. After a few aborted attempts to get the bird to sing, Crowley decided his attention was better paid to the road and the drive. When they got to his (not so) humble abode, he unfastened his belt and was surprised to glance up and see the angel had opened his door for him. He hadn’t even noticed the other creature had left his seat. It was a little spooky.

“Thanks, angel.”

“Of course, Master.”

Well. He _was_ his master, when all was said and done, but it didn’t exactly fill his ears with joy to hear it. It felt a little cheap to simply… buy it. Oh well. Buy in haste, repent at leisure, wasn’t it? It was too late now, he would just have to try it out. He slipped out from behind the wheel and nodded in thanks. 

They had garbed the angel in a simple white, flimsy tunic with a broad belt around the waist. The fabric was sheer and pretty, and he could see it catch over the angel’s perky little nipples. He could see, too, the outline of the angel’s (rather nicely formed) package, and he was sure when he turned it would also give him a good view of that ass he’d so admired. His feet - with the perfectly shaped toes - were shod in sandals that matched the belt. The angel’s neatly bound wings were currently hidden from view, and the only other thing visible was the slim collar that hung low on his throat. The very front was finished with a simple but sturdy D-ring which Crowley supposed was for leashing him, or attaching him to things. It was likely only for show, though, and for some owners’ sick desires. He suspected an angel would simply stay where it was told to.

“Well. This is Casa Del Crowley,” he said, closing the door before the angel could reach - force of habit - and noting how that flustered him. “Not much, but it’s home.”

‘Not much’ was a bit of an understatement. He watched as the angel first squinted at him, then - reluctantly - turned to look at it. There didn’t seem to be any understanding behind his expression, and Crowley wondered if it was because he was just brain-dead, or because he had no frame of reference.

“It… seems… large?”

“Not the _largest_ in the state, but one of. And besides… size isn’t everything…” he said, clapping a hand on the angel’s shoulder and guiding him up to the door. “Come on. I’ll give you a quick tour about the premises. You can find your way around when I’m not home.”


	2. Chapter 2

After the briefest of tours - which Crowley felt a little foolish guiding at times - he finally took his new pet back to his study. He wasn’t entirely ready to take him to his bedroom for their first… encounter. He wasn’t sure why, but it just didn’t seem right.

He made for the bottle of Craig and was surprised to feel the angel’s eyes boring twin holes in the back of his head. Apparently his little feathered servant took his role seriously. Crowley shrugged and went to sit in his overstuffed leather armchair, and let the angel pour him a glass of Craig. Castiel’s eyes were on his as he did - waiting for the sign to stop - and he gave it. When he was done, the angel walked placidly over and sunk down to his knees, offering the glass up and waiting for it to be taken.

Crowley tutted his tongue to his teeth. They really _did_ come fully housebroken, didn’t they? Didn’t that take some of the… joy out of it? Training them properly? Getting them to acknowledge you? No? Why was the American Dream so Plug and Play? Why was it so hung up on the immediate fix? Hmph. He swirled the Craig around and took a healthy swig.

Of course, they had also come with a full instructions manual, and one that the saleswoman told him she was sure no one ever read - certainly not any of her male customers. Crowley pulled the thing out of his inner jacket pocket and let it fall onto the desk in front of him. He looked down at the angel; no reaction.

“Hmm,” he mused and proceeded to absentmindedly leaf through the warranties section (he liked to go for the good stuff first).

The manual did come replete with banal commands to try on his new pet though such as ‘Off!’ and ‘Present.’ Crowley almost spat out his drink at that last one.

“Castiel, present!” he tried, biting his own lip to prevent himself from laughing.

The angel rose from his kneeling position, dropped the chiffon draping off his slender frame, and immediately bent over.

“Holy… Castiel… No!”

Castiel stayed bent over - hands on his knees - and peered back over his shoulder. He looked like he expected Crowley to strike him, and he looked like he thought he deserved it too. “It is what you asked of me?” he said, confused. “Did I… do something wrong?”

“Jesus H. Christ… just… go back to kneeling?” Not that Crowley didn’t _appreciate_ such a nice ass, or it being _presented_ so readily, but it also kind of… felt a bit… wrong. It sat awkwardly in his gut. What he’d really expected from a trained sex-slave he wasn’t sure, but… perhaps he’d not factored in _quite_ how crass the commercialised version of sexual perversion could be.

Perhaps Crowley had underestimated just how much he enjoyed the _chase_ that was real seduction. It was a skill, after all. And one he liked to think he’d honed to a fine point over the years.

Baffled, the angel dropped to his knees again. His head bowed, his wrists touching his knees with his palms open and up to the ceiling. The very model of obeisance. Still creepy.

Crowley averted his eyes and went back to perusing the manual. At least angels didn’t have to be fed. He shuddered to think what that process would have been like. All in all, they did seem like the simplest thing in the world to maintain, easier than a cactus even (and much less prickly). He pursed his lips and wiggled them methodically and slowly while trying to make up his mind.

He did _pay_ for the thing. And according to the saleswoman and her handy manual, the birds actually did _enjoy_ being molested… er… touched… made love to? Fuck it all.

“Would you like to go to the bedroom?” he inquired, carefully.

“If Master would like to, then yes,” Castiel replied after a short delay. He was still keeping his eyes averted. Still staring at the ground rather than up. There was a brief - pink - flush to his cheeks, though, and the faintest flicker of tongue over his lips.

Crowley suspected - or at least wanted to think - that that meant the angel _did_ want to. So he drained the glass and thunked it to the desk. “Come on. And bring that damned… tea-towel you were wearing. I don’t want you to get cold.”

“Yes, Master.”

He did wish he’d stop with that. It felt more than a little wrong to hear.

***

His own bedroom felt a little chilly, even while still wearing the suit. Crowley cranked up his thermostat to 70F, looked over at the angel’s nudity, and then cranked it up a few more degrees just in case. There was nothing in the manual about whether they exotherms or endotherms or ran hot or cold, so he was just going to have to play it by ear.

“Castiel...come,” Crowley stretched out his hand and was pleased to see the alacrity with which the angel reached out his arm and took it into his own hand. The last shade of the rueful look he wore in the study had melted away. The bird seemed flushed and ready for the plucking. His fingers were long and his skin was neither dry nor clammy, unlike his own hand - Crowley imagined - which must’ve been getting sweaty from all the uncomfortable excitement.

Because the angel was pretty. So very pretty. Even more pretty like this, up close, with his preternaturally pink lips slightly opened and waiting. It was obvious he wanted nothing more than to please Crowley.

He pulled the bird closer, running his own hand slowly from the dip of his lower back all the way up to the base of his neck. He watched the angel close his eyes and practically coo in pleasure, from that simple touch alone. Castiel’s eyelashes fluttered briefly and settled over his cheekbones and Crowley thought it might be interesting to kiss his eyelids. Would angels be into that? Instead, he pulled his pet in closer, pressing them chest to chest.

“You should undress me,” he suggested, wondering how much instruction this procedure was going to require. He hoped the bird would exercise at least _some_ iota of initiative.

“Yes, Master.” Castiel’s eyes sparkled and those clever fingers began the slow descent down button lane. It was nice watching him work, watching his mouth open up slightly, his tongue sneak out over his lips while his brows narrowed in concentration. Crowley had to admit, when it came to being the center of so much focused attention, it was definitely _hot_. And it felt real. Uncanny. The tie, shirt and jacket were all removed and neatly folded. Crowley didn’t even need to tell the angel to take good care of his things: it came naturally.

Kicking his own shoes off, the founder of Crowley & Cain, LLP tumbled into bed, pulling the angel along with him. He rolled them, so Castiel was on his back wearing nothing but those sandals on his feet, and peered down at him. Those shocking blue eyes were full of hope and want, and it was strange to feel so… desired. Strange but flattering. He slid a hand behind the angel’s neck, lifting him up for a kiss. He moved all too willingly, eyes fluttering closed and lips puckering hopefully before he was even close. Christ! Was there no end to the angel’s willingness? Would he accept every overture with such grace?

Enjoying the slight thrill of how _wrong_ it was, Crowley tilted his head to one side and pressed his lips to the angel’s. They were soft and pliant, and he was surprised when he felt a soft burble of pleasure drift up and into his mouth. A little movement, and those lips parted to a hot, welcoming cavern. Crowley pushed his tongue inside - flicking over teeth and then dragging over the angel’s tongue - a hand on his jaw holding him still to do this better. He was pleasantly surprised when he felt two tremulous hands reach for him. So he _could_ show initiative, after all! The angel simply held onto his biceps, though, as if anything else would be a step too far. Baby steps, then. Baby steps.

Crowley broke the kiss, of course, and then rained a tiny flurry over those swollen, plump lips. He had a gorgeous mouth, and it begged for a tongue to trail all around the lines of it. Begged for lots of things.

“Do you know… much about pleasure?” he asked, struggling to drag his eyes away from the angel’s face. Struggling, even though he could see the way the angel’s nipples were all but sharpened into bullets. To look lower over that washboard-and-muscle stomach to where the angel’s generous and pretty cock was trapped between them, saluting him from between his legs. There was no doubting that Castiel wanted this. Wanted _him_.

“I have… training. Knowledge,” he answered, as if trying to work out what he should say. “But no experience, Master. I will do anything you ask of me.”

Anything? God. That was a dangerous power to give any man with a credit card. And yes, he’d read the horror stories that mostly got relegated to the ‘Also’ sections of news reports. Anything. Playing God, indeed.

“Surely there are limits?” Crowley asked, sliding his thumb over that lower lip. “Things that are too much?”

The concept was clearly alien to Castiel. Dumb look again. Frustrating. Crowley was just going to have to learn the _real_ limits. They seemed to include asking in-depth questions, or expecting anything bordering on an opinion or decision. But he had bought him for his stunning ass and assets, not for intellectual discourse.

“I am sorry,” the angel said. “I don’t understand.”

“Why don’t you let me see your wings, then,” Crowley suggested. It was better than dwelling on the negatives, anyway. “Come on…”

Castiel blinked up at him owlishly, and Crowley rolled off him. He sat up on the bed and was pleasantly surprised when Castiel moved without further urging. Feathers moved to straddle his lap - and my, wasn’t that nice - and his broad hands laid flat on Crowley’s chest. There was a brief pause and Crowley liked to imagine it was coquettish, along with the cute little smile that creased the angel’s face.

“Yes, Master.” Castiel closed his eyes and shuddered briefly, as if a chill had run past that golden skin of his. From nowhere, in a blink, the two powerful black wings shimmered into sight. Crowley wasn’t satisfied with the manual’s explanation of where they _went_ when an angel wasn’t displaying his plumage, because it was all a fancy way of saying ‘we don’t know’. But when the wings settled - still bound as they had been in the shop - he thanked his lucky stars that this was one of the perks.

“They’re _beautiful_ ,” he breathed, his hands going up at once to touch. He danced the very tips of his fingers over them, feeling them flutter nervously at the contact. His eyes went straight to the angel’s face, and he was pleased to see his mouth was softly open, the pink of his tongue visible as he moaned in low pleasure. Jesus. Crowley wished _he_ was as sensitive. Eyes on the angel’s face, he pinched a feather between finger and thumb and rubbed over the long, thin spine. He tugged - not hard - and Castiel gasped loudly and his hips shunted forwards. Crowley did it again - harder - and the angel _keened_ and clawed at his shoulders.

“You like that?” Crowley asked.

A pause… then Castiel nodded. “Yes, Master.”

“Do you have to call me that?”

“Master, I will call you anything you desire.”

Hmm. He’d have to think about that.

He laid a finger on the knot at the outermost edge of Castiel’s wing, then bump-bump-bumped over the lacing, following the checkerboard pattern towards the angel’s flanks. Castiel whined and squirmed in his lap, his untouched cock stabbing Crowley’s belly with each rise and fall.

“Kiss me,” Crowley insisted, sliding his fingers under the threaded silk, pulling the material tighter, pulling the angel closer.

Castiel obeyed at once, pressing his lips to Crowley’s. He tasted sweet and fine, and when Crowley opened his mouth to him, their tongues met as equals. Good. Given the right instruction, then, he could learn. As their tongues vied for position, Crowley tugged at the raven-black pinions his hands were knotted in, surprised to feel the hands on his shoulders scrabbling madly again, the thighs that pressed outside his own clenching and the angel dry-humping his pants. It was as if he was trying to get Crowley to fuck him, even through his clothes.

The lawyer pulled back from the kiss, smirking up at his pet. “You want to ride my cock, little duck?”

There was no hesitation this time. Castiel nodded blindly: yes, yes, yes. He looked utterly drawn, like nothing in the world could compare to the thought of his Master inside of him, and Crowley found that - despite himself - he liked that look.

‘No lubrication required’ the book had said, and Crowley hadn’t believed it. For the female ones, perhaps. But then - if they didn’t eat, why would they need lubrication? And the damned things had wings capable of true flight, so who was he to judge? He untangled one hand from the bound wing - noting the keen of displeasure - and stroked down over the angel’s spine. He arched like a cat, chasing the pressure, and then Crowley squeezed his perfectly-shaped ass before he reached between the angel’s parted thighs. He slid a finger through the crack, surprised when he found the area of increased heat. The damned creature was positively _radioactive_ by his entrance. Fuck! And when he toyed over the little ring of muscle, he was pleased to find it already slick and waiting. Evidently the creatures were so attuned to pleasure, so ready to copulate, that their bodies kept them ready for use at all times. If was like Nature herself had _made_ them as a gift to lovers everywhere.

“Well,” he said, stopping that to unfasten his own zipper and tug himself free. “Get to it. I want you to ride yourself into oblivion on my prick.”

The angel _beamed_ at him, his whole face alight with the purest joy. He rose up on his knees, then sank down onto Crowley’s lap. Crowley hissed and then bit his lip. God damn, but that was… ungodly! The angel’s hole was just the right side of welcoming, still snug and a pleasure to slide into, and it was a soft, wet heat that was utterly different from other males he’d fucked over the years. The angel’s body wrapped around him, taking him in all the way to the balls. He moved his hand out of the way as soon as Castiel was impaled, and he gripped a perfect thigh instead. “ _Damn_ ,” he whispered.

“That feels… good… Master,” Castiel cooed happily. “So nice and fat, Sir.”

“You… damn. You keep talking, Cas,” Crowley gasped out, the shortened version of the pet’s name tumbling from his lips unbidden. “You _keep talking_.” His pet’s voice, for all his apparent shy meekness, was a breathy, gravely contre-baritone, which somehow went perfectly with the proud set of his jaw.

“I like it when you touch me,” Castiel went on, his smile reaching up to his eyes. He looked love-struck like a puppy. “I like it when you are happy. I like to see you smile. I like to hear you pleased with me.”

Crowley’s hands found the knots at the edges of the wings and he worried them loose, letting the tidy little bows untangle. That gave more slack to the stiffly-bound wings, and meant he could flex them in his hands. Castiel glanced at his hands, curiously, rising up and sinking back down again.

“I like it when you touch my wings, Master. I like it when you touch me inside. I like the way you make me feel full and complete…”

Several silken threads fell towards the bed, and Crowley worked his fingers over the bare expanse of feathers. Cas’ eyes went wide again, staring at the tangled mess that fell around them.

“Master?”

“Yes, Cas?” he asked, breath hitching when the angel stopped the slow, torturous rise and fall in his lap.

His lip quivered in minor distress. “Why do you untie me?”

“Because I want to touch your wings.”

That wasn’t answer enough, and the angel looked… alarmed. Crowley was confused. They had to have them regularly rebound anyway, the book had suggested. It was good for them to have their wings manipulated into new positions to prevent them from withering. And a good binding was a show of taste and wealth. Not to mention - hah - the things it had said about where you could fix your knots, so that when the angel moved, the little ligature points would rub over sensitive places and stimulate them further. There had been diagrams about little nerve bundles or ‘oil glands’, places you could massage until they secreted a cleansing liquid that was pleasantly fragranced and aphrodisiac, too.

“You could touch them… before.”

“Not properly,” he said, reaching up to drag over the uppermost ridge, sending the feathers below fluttering more silk loose. “Why does it bother you?”

Flustered, the angel looks pleadingly into his eyes, willing him to understand what he really just could not.

“It… feels good,” the little toy settled on at last. “It feels… secure. Safe. Firm.” The angel’s hands went to the dangling mess, and he curled the tendrils around his knuckles, dragging them back firm and taut.

Crowley watched in a sort of sick wonder as those wings beat against the restraints, as the angel tied himself back tighter and looked… _blissed_ to do so. He pulled them harder than they had been before, hard enough that his giant span almost bent double. Feathers that curled, spines and quills that arced in protest, and his head was thrown back in triumph. That beautiful swan’s neck of his exposed as he trilled in happiness, his ass clenching around Crowley’s dick.

The sick little fuck actually _got off on it_. Wonderingly, Crowley slipped his hands over Castiel’s, teasing out the strands and taking hold of them himself. Castiel looked infinitely relieved by that, and he cried out again when Crowley pulled _hard_ and _down_ , forcing the angel to slap his ass to his Master’s thighs, squirming in delight over his dick again.

“You like to be tied up?”

Castiel whined and nodded. His throat worked a few times, then he spoke. “Yes. Yes, Master. Lets me know I’m yours. Lets me feel… owned. Makes me feel… free…”

How ironic that the fabric tying the bird to the ground would be his freedom. It was why he was collared, Crowley supposed, and _he_ was not.

He pulled the threads together, across the front of his chest - making the angel’s wings curl around them - and he started to loop them around the angel’s pretty little cock. It was messy, and it wasn’t all that tidy or pretty, but the rough-and-ready element just made it that much more… raw. Castiel was practically _incandescent_ under his fingertips, and he made sure not to touch him too much just yet. The warnings of ‘over-stimulating’ and ‘shorting out’ ringing somewhere in his head. But if he tied the strings off just right, he thought he could probably keep the angel from blowing his load before he was ready. Because he wasn’t ready. Not by a long shot.

“Master!” Castiel called out, going frantic again. He was clawing at Crowley’s shoulders just this side shy of being painful (which - interesting - Crowley had never dabbled with that before but it wasn’t an alien concept to him), his toes scrabbling at the bedding as he fucked himself as hard and fast as he could. Damn, but it was hot. Disgustingly filthy… but hot.

“Shhh. I know. I know, angel. Put your lips on my throat, on my shoulder… you have my permission to kiss me wherever you want to…”

And kiss him Castiel did. Feverish little pecks of lips and whimpers of pleasure that he licked from his skin the moment he whispered them into being. The little bird was ecstatic and not too shy about showing it either, and Crowley enjoyed being the focus of such a loving whirlwind of need. It made him feel special and sexy, and it made him feel happy to cause his pet such glee.

When he felt he was getting close, Crowley pushed his fingers back into those bent-double wings, burrowing through the feathery mess and going up towards the angel’s spine. The manual had been quite… medical in its depictions at times. Well. It stopped it turning into light erotic fiction, he supposed. So it was relatively easy to find the leading flight-feathers and follow them up to the angel’s spine. He pressed his fingers into the flesh where they emerged, causing the first little shudder. Good. Then - like the book suggested - he stroked half an inch below and _pushed_. To his surprise he couldn’t feel anything under his fingertips, but the angel in his lap suddenly stopped kissing his throat and… there was no other word for it. He _sang_ a note of pure pleasure that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Holy…

Crowley pressed again, and he felt the slickness start to spurt out, coating the primary feathers with the self-cleaning fluid that was supposed to be so special. He dragged his fingers through the colourless liquid and rubbed it between finger and thumb. It felt silky and strangely clean, and when he lifted it to his nostrils, he found the smell to be warm and slightly bittersweet, like almond oil, or some other exotic fruit (probably a forbidden one). He was going to put his fingertips to the angel’s face for him to smell, too, when he caught the curious expression on his face.

Castiel had the most gorgeous blue eyes he could remember seeing in the longest time. But now? Now they seemed to _glow_ from within. A rising, pulsing flicker like an electrical storm in summer, building somewhere behind those orbs. Crowley cocked his head to one side, curious. All the sense seemed to be gone from him, and he could swear there were flashes of light coming from the angel’s parted lips. There was nothing in the literature that had covered this. What on _earth_ had he done?

“Cas?”

The angel didn’t respond, lost in the sensations, it seemed, still riding him with that blissed-out expression on his face. Crowley looked down at the silk ties that bound his proudly straining cock and wondered if that was the only thing keeping him upright.

He damned well hoped so, because _he_ wasn’t going to last much longer, and he didn’t have all night to be fucking the damned bird, so…

Crowley tugged the silk bonds free from the angel’s swollen cock, wrapping his hand around the shaft and stroking it, sliding the almond-scented oil over the soft skin and twisting his hand on the downslide. The angel made a choked little noise and - with no further warning - he was spilling hot and sticky angel-seed all over Crowley’s hand, and spurting it over his belly. Like the rest of him it felt a little bit too hot - almost like candlewax - and when Crowley stared into the angel’s eyes the blue light flared once and then died down. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what the blue was, what the light was… the beatific smile that lit his face when the glow had gone was more than enough.

Hands on Castiel’s hips, he lifted him up one last time and then grunted as his own cock spasmed into the welcoming heat of his angel. Castiel purred like a kitten, wriggling around on his dick like it was the best thing in the world… and then he was curling up against his chest with a sleepy little smile. The half-bound wings shyly moved forwards - the trailing, least-bound feathers glancing cautiously against the tops of his thighs, his ass, and his sides. It was tickly and it was pleasant. In the wake of his rather impressive climax, Crowley was feeling… benevolent.

He stroked through the slightly damp hair at the back of Cas’ neck. “That was good, angel,” he praised him. “Didn’t you think so?”

“Oh _yes_ , Master,” his little bird sang, his voice lazy and content. “Very much so.”

Crowley pulled him in close and climbed backwards on the bed, pulling the duvet over them both and cuddling as close as he was able to.

The last thing he saw before he fell happily, restfully asleep? Was the angel beaming down at him like he was the most important thing in the world.

And when he finally _was_ asleep, he didn’t even feel the nervous little kiss the angel glanced to the side of his mouth.


	3. Chapter 3

When Crowley woke the next morning, it was to a pleasant feeling that washed through his body. He’d fucked and fallen asleep, and he always felt better after a little light cardiovascular exercise before bed. He stretched his legs down the mattress, and his arms up towards the headboard, and…

...then he remembered _who_ he’d been fucking. Or - possibly more accurately - _what_. Lying on the bed beside him, head pillowed on his hands, was his latest purchase. Crowley swallowed past the dry feeling in his mouth, trying to lick his lips but finding himself too parched. The angel was smiling the same way he’d been when they’d fallen - no - **he’d** fallen asleep last night. Angels didn’t sleep. He’d forgotten that after all the boning of the night before, and the angel had apparently been staring at him adoringly ever since.

Crowley knew he was good in the sack, but there was good and then there was - apparently - crazy slightly stalkery afterglow that lasted over eight hours.

“Good morning, Master,” the angel crowed at him. His wings were still out - the silk stays falling over his hip and spilling onto the bed between them. No longer were they pure white, but streaked with traces of angelic oil, sweat and semen. The evidence of their night of passion was there all over the bed, and all over the angel. 

It felt… it felt cold and heavy in his stomach, like a drink straight from the tap on a none-too-warm day. Sure, it had felt freaking amazing last night, but now his feathered doll was giving him a bad case of the creeps.

“I - yes - yes. It is.”

The angel was trailing his fingers over the bed between them, hope there on his face. Was he already wanting more? Did the blasted thing think of nothing other than the next load he could blow? And why couldn’t Crowley just enjoy what he’d paid good money for? He frequently woke up horny and to an empty bed, what was so bad about a willing, nubile body that would practically beg for him to bend it over and ream it? Or would dive below the covers to suck away the residual arousal? Why couldn’t he just let go?

“I have to get ready,” Crowley told him, scooting back to his side of the bed, trying to put his poker face on. Well. His work face. The one he wore to get what he wanted.

“Okay, Master. Should I bathe you?”

“What? No! No. Just… you put your things back on. I need to work out where the hell to get you rebound and occupied.”

“Yes, Master.”

Creepy. As. Fuck. Crowley ran to the bathroom as fast as he could.

 

***

Crowley did not have a lot of friends, following his own advice that you could have either friends or money, but definitely not both. But of the few he did deign to count among the chosen, Dean Winchester was the most glaring outlier. He had been a detective at the local precinct, and their paths had crossed (or, to be more accurate, their heads first butted) during one of Crowley’s _pro bono_ cases. His client had been young and stupid, and Winchester had been barely older and overzealous, and everything might have ended up in a suspension for the young gun, had Crowley not used all of his negotiating skill to reach an amicable settlement. Both sides felt slightly used and slightly smug, which was the sign of a successful negotiation.

He had invited Dean for a drink then, and - oddly enough - the detective had accepted. Crowley would be lying if he said there wasn’t a big part of him that had wanted to bone the cop. But the dreamboat had a laundry list of issues the size of the last exclusive license agreement Crowley had helped a local pharmaceutical company negotiate (which was to say: fifty pages long, not including appendices). Crowley had reined in his lower beast and, somehow - lots of whiskey under the bridge - they had become… friends. Besties, even.

Crowley had even got Dean’s younger brother a Junior Associate position at his own firm. Can’t get anywhere in life without a little nepotism, and he was perfectly willing to play benevolent uncle to young Sam. And so as not to appear too overly avuncular, he had also given Sam Winchester his own angel as a signing bonus. Well. He didn’t want anyone to say that Crowley & Cain, LLP didn’t treat their associates like royalty.

That was of course before he had gotten it into his head to get his own, and met Castiel.

Which, all things considered, had clearly been a mistake. A mistake he could, fortunately, afford to have made, but a mistake nevertheless.

“...and, really, you’d be doing me a huge solid if you were to take the blasted bird off my hands,” Crowley continued, refilling Dean’s glass. He knew the detective would never be able to afford something so extravagant on his government salary, but also that he wasn’t one for accepting lavish gifts. “The whole thing is… well, rather…”

“Rapey?” the detective offered.

“I was going to say ‘tawdry’.” Crowley frowned. It wasn’t ‘rapey’ if consent never really came into the equation. Right? “Maudlin, even,” he attempted. “He’s a really sweet bird though,” he had fixed Dean with his most plaintive gaze. “Truly. Would you like to see him? You won’t be able to resist once you’ve seen him.”

Dean emitted a curt laugh.

“That how they got you to buy him?”

“It wasn’t salesmanship, my boy. You know no one can pull one over on me like that. These things practically sell themselves! Did you know, for example, that they don’t eat or poop?”

Dean cringed. “Uh… no. No, I did not know that.”

“Perfect houseplant!”

“But one that has mind-blowing sex with you apparently?” Dean smirked. Crowley really sometimes hated how handsome his friend’s face was. On anyone else, that look would be smarmy and threatening, but not on the elder Winchester. 

“Just take the bloody bird, I’m _begging_ you.”

“Jesus, Crowley. If you don’t want him, why don’t you just take him back the zoo where you got him from?” Dean sipped his drink and nervously twiddled with his watch.

“Because I can’t. I mean...” Crowley technically _could_ , but, “It’s not that I can’t, I just… feel _bad_ , you know? Thinking of someone else getting him? At least this way I know he’ll be in good hands.” Yeah, really good hands. Hands that a few years ago Crowley wouldn’t have minded getting all over himself. But, bygones, and what not.

“Alright, fine,” Dean finished his second drink and stretched out on the leather sofa. He was beginning to feel visibly benevolent. “Bring him out. And if he’s a pretty as you say, I’ll take him off your hands. But, for the record: this is weird.”

“Yes, I _know_ it’s weird,” Crowley started to say. That was the entire bloody _point_ of this little exercise. But before Dean could change his mind he figured, he’d better get on that. “Castiel! Come here!”

The bird had been in the next room. Doing… whatever it is that birds did when they were not allowed to coo and peck their masters all over. He appeared in the doorway right away, as if he had flown there (which, clearly, he couldn’t, not with the binding over his wings). Crowley crooked his finger, beckoning the angel closer. He had eyed Castiel appreciatively, willfully ignoring the stab in his belly at the thought of parting with his purchase, and then shifted his eyes over to Dean. He had not been mistaken in his choice.

“Yeah… He’s…” Dean stopped and bit his lower lip, slowly licking over it as he obviously admired Castiel from head to toe. “Hmm… I can see why you bought him.”

“This is my friend Dean. Say hello, Castiel.” Crowley beamed proudly at his pet.

“Hello, Dean.”

“I was not expecting his voice to sound like that.” The detective shifted uncomfortably in his seat, possibly to cover an emerging erection. 

“You wanna see his wings?” Crowley asked, like a kid in a candy store. Then mentally kicking himself because _No, Crowley_ , the entire point of this was to get _rid_ of the bird, not to get it to proudly display its plumage.

“Y-y-yeah,” Dean muttered, clearly struggling to keep himself from ogling the specimen too blatantly.

“Castiel, wings!” Crowley commanded, and the angel materialized the black expanses with that smallest of shivers. 

“Holy shit,” Dean had gotten up off the couch, unable to keep himself from coming closer to look at the avian appendages.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Crowley was about to stroke his hand over one, but then pulled it back, remembering the reaction that small action was likely to cause in his angel. His angel, who had been smiling the smile of sheer adoration at him this entire time. Yeah, no. Time to seal this deal. “So, what do you say, Dean?”

“I say, yes. And I’ll remember that apparently I’m doing you a huge _favor_ , you utterly bizarre old man.”

“Hey! Watch it with the ‘old’ comments or I might change my mind.”

“Yeah, not after that entire oration you gave me earlier on how very put out you are!”

The Winchester was right. Crowley needed to get rid of the thing and the sooner the better. And he’d told Dean the truth - he at least could rest easily knowing the angel was going to be properly taken care of. (Besides, if free will was an option, who _wouldn’t_ pick Cheekbones over Crowley?)

“So, how do we do this thing?” Dean asked.

“Ah!” Sealing the deal - now that was Crowley’s forte. “Simple. I take this collar off…” He did as he was saying, ignoring the sudden look of panic in the angel’s eyes as the key turned in the hidden lock. “And I give it to you, and you’re supposed to just… yeah… put that back on him.” He watched Dean re-attach the collar with one eyebrow eloquently raised at the ritual. “Right. Now you recite these words and _presto_!” He gave the laminated card that Cecily had given him earlier over to Dean.

Dean recited, “I am your Master. You are mine. I will take care of you.”

Crowley remembered how when he did this, it was as if a light switch had gone on in Castiel’s eyes. This time, there was no such spark.

“Is that it?” Dean asked.

“It’s a call and response,” Crowley said, feeling annoyed.

“Yes, Master,” Castiel spoke, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. His eyes remained expressionless.

Crowley breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Now you have to kiss him. Go on.”

Dean gave Crowley a suspicious look. 

“Well, I didn’t write the bloody protocol, did I?” He waved the manual in the air rather militantly.

Dean shrugged and leaned in to brush his lips against those of the angel, and Crowley looked away to give them privacy. Those lips had been… well, the finest money could buy, surely. But just because they were very nice and plump, and his mouth had felt like an entire cavernous fireplace, that did not mean that it was worth owning. No love was worth it if you didn’t have to work for it.

“Something’s wrong with him. I think he’s broken,” Dean spoke.

“What do you mean?” Crowley turned back.

“Well… look at him.” 

Crowley looked. Then he looked back at Dean. 

“He’s miserable.”

“Nonsense,” Crowley shook his head, “He’s incapable of feeling misery. I’m sure it says so right here in the manual.” And to prove himself correct, he began to leaf through the instructions again, wanting to take refuge in small print and bullet point lists. 

“I don’t know, man. That’s one sad looking angel.” Dean ran his fingers through Castiel’s hair, but it was as if the bird had turned to stone. 

Crowley gave up on the manual and faced Castiel with an exaggerated sigh.

“What is _wrong_ with you?” he snapped at the bird.

The angel glared back at him with a not-negligible amount of wrathfulness.

“Look, I gave you to a very attractive new Master! You should be happy! You should be dancing for joy like you did on my cock last night. _Christ_!”

The angel’s lower lip trembled, but no answer came.

“Yeah, this feels fucked up. Take him back. Do the thing,” Dean insisted, waving his arms about as if he wanted to bat away the feeling of nastiness creeping up on him.

Crowley groaned in resignation.

“Fine,” he sighed. “But I honestly have no idea what’s wrong with him. They’re not supposed to be like that.”

He repeated the maneuver with the collar and then said the requisite words, waiting for the call back that never seemed to come.

“Hello? Earth to Castiel?”

The angel was silent.

“Christ, Crowley. I think we broke him.”

“I give up!” Crowley threw up his arms and then simply pulled Castiel in, pressing their lips together without waiting for the pre-programmed response of ‘Yes, Master’.

The angel’s wings and entire body seemed to flutter. Something sparked in his eyes and then, without a single word, he simply threw himself into Crowley’s embrace, wrapping his limbs around the man like some kind of a feathery octopus. Awkwardly, Crowley hugged him back, trying to avoid the sensitive areas around his wings.

He’d only had the thing for about twenty-four hours and he’d already managed to make it short out its little brain. He really had no idea what he was going to do about this whole Castiel situation.


	4. Chapter 4

Take the angel to the special sex club, Dean had said. Take the angel there where you’ll be surrounded by people who know what to do with them. Surely someone there would know what was wrong? 

Right, thought Crowley, that was the last time he took advice from bloody Dean Pretty Boy Winchester. Attractive of face and behind he might be, intellectual voice of a generation he was most assuredly _not_.

The card Cecily had given him gave him a free pass for his first visit to **Opus Angelorum** , which had its own dedicated, private members’ site and various venues up and down the country. Crowley had done his research beforehand, reading through the rules (some were simple, like ‘no jeans and t-shirt, smart black at bare minimum, fetish wear preferred’, and some went into much more graphic detail about the protocol relating to use and abuse of others’ angels without their owner’s consent) and he had thought he would be prepared for anything. Oh, Crowley, how wrong you were.

Crowley had worn one of his finer - all black - suits, with similarly black shirt and he’d opted - for once - for a blood-red tie to pick out some detail from his outfit. The angel he’d bought a flattering but flimsy shirt in cornflower blue, and soft, cropped silk trousers that showed off his ankles. He’d put a strong but dainty belt around his waist, and the leash he’d attached to his collar came with a clasp so he could fasten it to the belt when he wanted his hands free (and also, so he could hitch him easily and simply to anything he wanted), but he’d taken the manual’s advice and left his feet bare. ‘Pain,’ the book had read, ‘is not processed in the same way by angels. In most circumstances they actually derive pleasure from it, and you need not take the same care with them as you would a human.’

He’d even had the bird re-bound for the occasion, not wanting to be outclassed even if he was a novice to angel-owning… and a reluctant master, at that. The vast array of potential karadas had boggled the mind, but he’d eventually opted for one that looked both aesthetically pleasing and functionally comfortable. Castiel had _trilled_ in pleasure when they’d done it. The binder had suggested he might enjoy being present - at least for the first time - and he’d held the angel’s hands as the man worked the angel’s wings into shape. Crowley had been uncomfortably aroused before the end.

The pattern he’d chosen had the wings folded almost in half behind him, with the longest feathers crossing over: left wing-feathers over right. Much like the first had woven threads in and out, this did the same with both feathers _and_ silk. The same cornflower blue that brought out those pretty little eyes, and then tight little knots that lined the junction of wings to spine, like corsetry down his back. “If you place them just right,” the binder told him, “you can get them to rub over the glands. So every time they move, they touch themselves and it pushes them higher. And so when you tug on them, or stroke their wings, it’s like you’re jerking them off. But that’s only if you want to have them in a permanent state of arousal.”

Mesmerised, he’d nodded. Damnit! Why was the stupid bird so attractive, and why did Crowley care so much about him being happy?

Here, though… he was outclassed. Admittedly, he was happy to be: Masters wandered around in leather, PVC, corsets, kilts, chaps and any number of other… deviant things. Crowley wasn’t quite sure where he should keep his eyes, because he didn’t want to _ogle_ , but when someone wore something so revealing? They kind of invited your attention. There were high heels that must have needed legal waivers to wear for Health and Safety reasons, boots that had more metal and buckles and clasps than Crowley’s entire _wardrobe_ combined, and there were scarcely a set of lips that walked past that weren’t painted either sinful blood red, or terrifying goth black. And that was just the _owners_.

The angels were another thing entirely. Most of them were barely dressed in anything, the most covered up were in gimp masks that hid their beautiful faces and just left a functional orifice and reduced them literally down to the holes they were considered to be. Skimpy slave costumes, push-up or peep-hole bras (if they even wore one), fuck-me stockings and garter-belts, rope and lace and chains. Some of the angels’ wings were adorned with jewellery: stones that sparkled hung from the bindings, making them literally bling in the dim and UV lighting. Some of the outfits he thought looked far too denigrating or showy to be attractive, but the odd one seemed to have a touch more class. He tugged Castiel along with him to the bar and ordered the best scotch they carried (sadly not good _enough_ , but beggars could not be choosers) and perched on the barstool to take in the sights.

“First time, huh,” came a voice to the side and he turned to see a beautiful red-head with olive green eyes and plump, pink lips. 

“What gave it away?” he asked, swivelling to face her properly.

She looked up and down in a gesture that included both him and his pet. “Both the way you dress, the way you carry yourself… oh. And because you’re staring at _everything_.”

Crowley laughed. “I’m really that obvious?”

“To an old hand like me,” she said, with a grin that looked positively _wolfish_. “No one goes by their real names, here. So you can call me Mistress Abbie.”

“Nice to meet you, Mistress Abbie,” he replied, thinking it was pretentious as fuck to assume a stranger would consent to call you ‘Mistress’, but whatever. “I’m… Fergus.” It was a stupid-ass name, but it was the first thing he could pull from the ether. Probably because he’d been thinking about real Scotch, not this cheap swill.

“Fergus?” Her eyebrow arched and Crowley wanted to wipe that smirk off her face. At least _he_ wasn’t so damn insecure he had to invent fake titles for his ego. “How quaint.”

‘Mistress’ Abbie pulled her angel with a fingernail hooked through the O-ring on his collar. The thing looked utterly meek; its eyes were downcast and hands by its sides, palms up in supplication and obedience. Crowley knew bruises didn’t show on angelic flesh, and here was the proof because there was a beast that would look beaten if it could.

“What did you do to his wings?” he asked, in surprise. The creature’s feathers weren’t bound at all. Wasn’t that unheard of?

“Oh… it’s something **True** Masters do,” she said, lazily. She twirled a finger and the angel spun around at once. “You see, the little monsters get _off_ on constriction. It’s a common problem. They _love_ the feeling of being bound, being owned, being controlled. So… some of us don’t give them the benefit unless they earn it, and we remove the flight-feathers instead. Same restraining effect, less… distracting for them. It also means you can better torture their glands.”

‘Torture’ them? Crowley swallowed. That didn’t sound like something he’d want. The poor bird was indeed plucked. His hawk-brown wings were deforested, and every second long plume had been removed at the root. He was displaying them as he was bidden, but without the full spread it looked… sad, almost. Not to mention why would anyone seek to remove such a source of pleasure? Wasn’t the whole point of having an angel that they enjoyed giving you pleasure? If they weren’t enjoying it, too… no. He didn’t like that concept at all.

“I see.” He shuffled a little, putting more of him between his angel and this… woman, who he was rapidly growing to dislike intensely. 

“Oh, bless. Well. Once you’ve gotten your beginner’s nerves out of your system, if you find you want to learn how to _truly_ push your toy to the very _limits_... you come find me.” She patted him on the cheek, and Crowley bristled.

“I’ll bear that offer in mind,” he thought, and by ‘bear it in mind’ he meant ‘shudder at the very concept of something as abhorrent to me and make sure I keep at least twenty feet between you and Castiel at all times’.

Thankfully the woman slunk off on those too-high heels, leaving Crowley with Castiel.

His angel seemed to sense his discomfort, because he was fussing at his side the moment she left. Castiel looked concerned and sad, and Crowley wondered how _anyone_ could deny they could feel negative things, because his was clearly capable of empathy and worry.

“Don’t fret,” he told him, running a hand up and down his back. “I’ll never do that to you. I like your wings just the way they are.”

Castiel hummed under his hand, a shy little smile on his face. “Thank you, Master.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Cas continued to arch and sigh under his hand, and Crowley reassured himself of his own sense of basic human decency by continuing to distract them both as his eyes wandered. Not all of the patrons seemed to be so intent on selfish pleasure, to be fair. Quite a few of them had angels who looked to be enjoying the treatment doled out to them, be it kneeling on all fours to act as a sentient footrest, or kneeling between parted thighs to act as a sentient fucktoy. Every now and then there was a louder-than-usual cry of happiness and they didn’t all come from angels. The club’s information had a large disclaimer on the fact that sexual activity with angels was not covered by any blue laws, so long as humans didn’t swap money for it (at least, not publicly). The drink finished, Crowley tugged just once on Castiel’s leash and his angel followed smartly at his heel.

They walked further into the club, away from the dance floor and the booths that lined the sides, away from the alcohol and back to what Crowley assumed was the ‘play area’ that had so many rave reviews on Yelp (it was important to do your research before attending your first kinky sex dungeon). They could still hear the music - which was an unimaginative mix of things like Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails, of course - but it was muted out the back.

There were a few private rooms. Some had closed doors and ‘vacant’ or ‘engaged’ signs, some had huge windows through which to observe the play. Down the far end was an open-plan dungeon for the more exhibitionist (or desperate, he couldn’t decide). Here were dotted thrones, stocks and pillaries, crosses of all varieties and more than a few benches for the bending over of angels. Everything was outfitted in red, black, wood, iron and leather. Very samey. But what really caught the eye was what seemed to be the deliberate centrepiece. Crowley had to hand it to the patrons, they did like their theatricality.

His hand on the leash tightened as his pants did - despite himself - and he was both drawn to and repelled by the sight. In the middle of the dungeon - suspended from various hooks - hung an angel. Chains curled around his frame and attached to cuffs and collar, his limbs splayed wide open and vulnerable. He could barely move but writhe as some demented, automated machine ploughed into his ass from below. Crowley could hear the whir of the cogs as it slammed up and down, up and down. Hypnotic, really. The angel was so thoroughly restrained - even down to the matching, shiny cock-ring that kept his pleasure at bay - that he had no hope to escape from the continuous, merciless stimulation. Damn. And as if that wasn’t enough? From time to time laughing humans sent willing angels up to him, ordering them to stand before him and wrap their lips around his leaking cock. They would knot fingers in their hair and fuck their angels’ mouths over his crotch, or slap at his ass, or scratch fingernails under his bared and curling feet. 

The angel himself was no shrinking violet either, by the looks of him. He was easily over six feet by a few inches, if Crowley had to estimate from where was standing, his long limbs accentuated by the stark restraints against them. His shoulders seemed practically as broad as his wingspan. The angel’s jaw was chiseled, pointed, and square, large like the rest of his facial features. If Castiel had seemed a bit of an Adonis to Crowley, then this one would have been more of an Ajax or a Hercules. This was magnificent power masterfully fettered. The poor beast looked _frantic_ with the need to get off, his wings fluttering madly against the ties that bound him, the very faintest of blue flaring now and then behind his eyes. 

Oh, Crowley thought, that was _almost_ what he’d seen in his angel. He heard an appreciative hum and it took him a moment to realize that it was Castiel. His angel was watching the proceedings with his head tilted to one side - calm, but longing - and Crowley realized that he _did_ want this kind of treatment. Not the mutilation part, but the restraint and stimulation. Interesting. All the books denied they had any preference other than ‘obedience’, so either the books lied or he had a bird of a different feather. 

“You’d enjoy that?” he asked.

Castiel jumped at the question. It was another one of those questions Crowley suspected he shouldn’t be asking. But then - after the briefest of pauses - the angel nodded once. “Yes, Master.”

“Being tied up and touched, or being forced to touch?”

Another squirm. “Both.”

“But you have a preference?” 

While the bird was singing, he was going to keep asking. 

“...the first, Master.”

Crowley cupped the angel’s cheek and ran his thumb over the corner of his mouth. “Good. Good boy.”

The angel actually blushed, and pushed into his touches like a little kitten craving more. Right. Now he’d established that admitting wanting things was praise-worthy, it was time to carry on.

“I want you to answer me honestly, Castiel. I don’t mind whatever you say to me, so long as it’s the truth. You never need to worry about that. I don’t want lies, and I don’t want you hiding things, or saying things you think I want to hear. Do you understand me?”

Castiel nodded again, kissing at his palm. Damnit. The damned bird was distracting him from the things he wanted to know.

“Before. When I gave you to Dean--” and here the bird went rigid and uncomfortable again, “--you were acting… off. When you’re reprogrammed, you’re supposed to listen to it.”

Glumly, he nodded.

“So why didn’t you? You acted like you resented being passed over. Did we do something wrong?”

A vehement shake of the head, and his ocean-blue eyes were begging Crowley to stop this line of questioning. Crowley felt guilty (hah, why should he? It was just an ‘angel’...? But no. It was still a sentient being, willing fucktoy or not, and the law and convention be damned.)

“You seemed…” Crowley continued after a few moments of distraction (someone just let their angel loose on the Suspended One and it went to work like it was trying to suck the bird’s grace out through his prick). “Uh… you seemed angry. Resentful even.” Which was exactly so, Crowley read that they weren’t capable of feeling those emotions, but that was precisely the look he had seen in his angel’s eyes.

Castiel shuffled from foot to foot, his eyes now lowered. It wasn’t demure now, though; it was avoidant. And the angel was disobeying all over again by refusing to answer his questions. Interesting. The lawyer hooked a finger under his chin and forced his head up, waiting until he finally relented and made eye-contact.

A pink tongue stole out over his cupid-bow lips, and Castiel swallowed in that utterly distracting way he had. Crowley wasn’t sure if he was doing it on purpose or not. 

“If you… wish to let your friends use me, I have no objection,” came the cautious response. “Only… please do not give me away, Master. I will do anything you ask… but please not that.”

“Why?”

It made practically no sense. Why would the angel not object to being passed around like a football, but apparently minded who owned his deed? Had he been programmed too hard the first time, and some shadow of the ownership had lingered in his mind? 

“I just… want to be yours,” Castiel answered, sounding like he was miserable as fuck to say it, too. His eyes were down again and - oh yes - then the whole angel dropped down to his knees, a pitiful, anguished look on his face as he begged forgiveness with those eyes of his.

Damnit. “I’m going to need more than that… Castiel… _why_?”

The angel looked hesitant again, his hand gently clawing at the back of Crowley’s calves, as if to ground himself.

“Master, it is our programming. We’re… sensitive. To your wants, your desires, we… satisfy your deepest needs.” He stopped and bit his lower lip. 

Crowley frowned. What the angel was saying went beyond empathy. Was he saying that he could… that he… huh.

“Go on,” Crowley prodded gently, feeling his heart speed up a few clicks.

“I don’t understand what I did wrong,” the bird looked up, his lashes - a thick dark canopy over his bright eyes - lifting like a veil. “It is your wish to be loved, and so I love you. Why did you try to give me away?”

Well. Shit. 

Crowley felt his face going red, too. Apparently half-naked and glitter-covered sextoys being fucked three ways to Sunday in public didn’t fluster him, but… his angel? Yeah. His angel could make his collar three sizes too tight and his feet want the ground to open up below them and swallow them both up without a trace. Did he? Want to be loved? I mean… any more than anyone? Surely every person wanted that. It was only natural, wasn’t it? The damned bird was probably just too overly-sensitive or something. _Other_ people didn’t have this problem, did they? And what the hell did that say about him that he wanted love so badly he was prepared to buy a beast and crave adoration from it?

“Cas… it isn’t love if you don’t have a choice,” he stammered out, not sure why he was even having this conversation and very unsure why he was having it here. “That’s just… ownership. If you can’t say no, it’s…”

Wrong. Weird. Sick. Rather bordering on the non-consent. All things Crowley found _utterly_ unsexy as hell. 

Cas squinted at him. He clearly wanted to say something, but he was biting his lip.

“...you can say whatever it is you’re thinking,” Crowley offered, realising he might need to make the permission explicit several times before the damned angel took it to heart.

“I did have a choice,” Cas said - slowly - as if the reality of it was difficult for him to grasp. 

“When?”

“When… you gave me away?”

“...So?”

Crowley felt rather dumb. The angel was making him feel emotionally and intellectually outmanned and it wasn’t exactly flattering.

“...I didn’t want you to,” Cas said, simply. As if that explained everything. “Why did you do it?”

Crowley didn’t even register that the angel had asked _him_ a question - again - he was too tangled up in the confusion about whether a desire to please could still count as a free will choice or not. 

“Because… I didn’t want to take advantage of you.”

“I wanted you to.”

This was fucked up. It was beyond fucked up. And it was not really the sort of thing to be discussing while patrons were getting their respective happy endings a few feet away - blissfully ignorant of the ethical dilemma he found himself in. 

“Come on… I think we’ve seen enough. I’m calling my driver to take us back home.”

“Yes, Master.”

“I do wish you’d stop calling me that…” he mumbled, and tugged on the angel’s leash. He’d had his fill of conventional wisdom and unconventional perversions for the night.

***

The ride back in the limo seemed to take forever even though it only took about fifteen minutes. Castiel sulked, his head thrown backwards over the headrest, exposing his sinfully long neck, while Crowley mentally tore his own hair out.

“Angel, your pouting is killing me,” Crowley groaned, trying to avoid eye contact.

“Sorry, Master.” It actually looked as if the angel attempted to school his expression into a more neutral one, rather than love-sick puppy on steroids. “I only want to please you.”

Crowley wanted to beat his head against the window.

“Yeah, I know, Cas,” he patted the angel’s thigh in a way that he hoped was friendly and not overtly sexual. He wanted to comfort the bird, not initiate any overtures to limo-sex.

“You didn’t want to use me back at the club,” the angel muttered.

“No,” Crowley replied, hoping not to reopen that whole can of worms. It had been a mistake to take Castiel there, regardless of how _informative_ the outing had been.

“And you don’t want to use me now?”

“I’m tired, Cas,” Crowley lied.

“But…” The angel’s eyes blatantly shifted towards Crowley’s crotch and the tenting evident in his slacks. Really subtle, Crowley thought with a snort.

“Don’t… mind that. It’s just… Human nature.”

“I could take care of it for you?” Castiel shot him another look that was so wistful and full of hope that Crowley had to struggle to force his saliva down his own throat. Everything just felt like a lump. A lump that had grown in his chest and wasn’t going anywhere.

“That won’t be necessary,” he finally replied, forcing his eyes away from the angel’s lips, trying to stop his thoughts from racing where they so willingly would go. The images of the angel writhing on his cock coming unbidden to him. Flashes of the heat from a few nights ago, the heat that he now had to struggle to refuse and deny. 

He just… couldn’t. Not until he figured out what the hell was wrong with this angel that he got stuck to him. Why was he so stubbornly insistent on becoming attached to Crowley and no one else? He couldn’t do it until he was certain he wasn’t actually hurting the poor beast.

“But… you want to,” the angel sighed quietly.

“Castiel, stop reading my mind… And my dick. Just…” It actually physically hurt him to be doing this. “No more speaking until we get home,” he finally ordered and the angel nodded and directed his eyes out the window. Crowley convinced himself that they weren’t, in fact, glistening.


	5. Chapter 5

“He’ll be okay with Gabe,” Sam said, reassuringly. “I’ve never met an angel who didn’t like Gabe. He’s a sweetheart.”

“Yes, he seems it,” Crowley agreed. From what he’d seen, anyway. He’d only ‘met’ him a few times before, and he couldn’t really remember having ever formulated an opinion other than ‘he has nice eyes and a cheeky smile’. Which made him feel slightly guilty now. 

Ruby - Sam’s lovely but part-of-the-enemy-camp wife - had taken Castiel off his hands to corral him with Gabriel. Crowley liked Ruby as a person, even if she did work for that skeevy Lilith who sometimes stole his contracts and clients. Still. Sam was the consummate professional, and he was sure that they never traded things without getting something of equal value, and equilibrium was at least preferable to depreciation. 

“Tell me honestly,” Sam said, giant hands clasped together as he leaned between those overgrown legs of his. Crowley sometimes wondered if the lanky Moose was actually a full-blood Winchester, or if Dean was perhaps the cuckoo. He’d never met John and he’d had no desire to, either, from what Dean had said about their kook of a father. “I know you didn’t want to, in front of Ruby.”

Astute as ever, Crowley thought. This is why he’d hired him and why he’d come to him for more… in-depth help. 

“It’s the damndest thing,” Crowley said, fussing with the knee of his slacks so as to avoid Sam’s piercing and intent gaze. “He was… he was good enough, but I felt a little… I felt a little… off. Keeping him. I tried to hand his collar over to your brother - he told you? - anyway. We did the whole ritual, blah, blah, blah… and the damned thing looked like I’d just…” Broke his heart? “...betrayed him.” Slightly less creepy way of putting it. 

“Huh.”

“I know, I know. Well. He was… Sam. The damned bird was _pouting_ like I’d kicked him to the curb or something. He really wasn’t playing ball, and there was no way Dean would keep him looking like that, so I had to take him back.”

“You mean he… said ‘no’?”

“Not in so many words, but yes. He acted like he was angry with me, and it wasn’t until I took him back that he cheered the hell out of his funk.” Crowley bit his lip. Did he dare mention the whole… ‘l-word’ thing? Didn’t it sound… sort of insane?

“And… since then?”

“He keeps trying to have sex with me.”

Sam burst out laughing, then clapped his hand over his mouth in horror. “Dude. I’m sorry, but… you do realize that’s kind of what they’re for?”

“I am aware of their primary marketing points, yes, Sam. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Crowley shuddered. “It - no offence meant - feels slightly… _creepy_? I mean, no judgement on anyone who likes that, but it… felt a bit wrong to be abusing something so naturally trusting. There was no… chase involved.”

Sam nodded like he understood, even if Crowley wasn’t sure he did. He knew he was treating the angel completely differently to how society at large viewed them, and his opinions had to be - at best - subversive and at worst? Downright twisted.

“You like to seduce.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Depends what they’re looking for, I guess. I mean: I have Ruby. She’s the light of my life, and I’d chase her to the ends of the earth. But Gabe? Gabe is just a sweetie. He’s fun, he’s funny, and he _really_ spices things up when we get him in the loop, you know?”

Crowley sort of didn’t want to know, but he nodded all the same.

“Do you think they’re capable of free will?”

“...why do you ask that?”

Hmph. His slacks were going to get holes in the knees if he didn’t stop playing with them. “How did he manage to refuse reprogramming, and throw a hissy fit over being given to Dean, and then tell me he wanted things, if he didn’t have a mind of his own?” Crowley wondered aloud. “I know people think they’re different because they enjoy being ordered around, or tied up, or fucked… but I’m relatively confident he’s capable of feeling distress and distaste, and having his own… preferences.”

“Alright. So you brought him here…?”

“He said he didn’t mind being loaned out, just that he… ah. Wanted to continue to belong to me.”

Sam’s eyebrows really did raise at that. Yes. Crowley had been right. His bird _was_ demented. Feather-brained, even. Defective. Nutjob.

“Okay. Well. He’s a pretty thing, and if you don’t mind sharing him with me for - uh - science then… I’ll see what I make of him.”

“I appreciate it, Sam. I really do. I want to go back to enjoying my purchase, but I just… can’t. At the minute.”

“Uhm. Even though you said you wanted him to make his own decisions and he kinda did?”

“But that’s the thing! He said he was doing what I _wanted him to_!”

“I don’t see how that’s a problem.”

“It’s still not a choice if he only thinks he has a choice because I want him to have a choice,” Crowley huffed.

“...dude. You _really_ need to just… unwind, you know?”

He narrowed his eyes at Sam. It was his ‘no, I’m right, you’re wrong, and you will work it out eventually’ face.

“Fine, fine… I’ll see what the hell I make of him. Although I’m not sure why me fucking your angel will make you fucking him any less weird, but if it soothes your need for validation and gets you back in your A-Game I’ll do it.”

“Much obliged,” Crowley said, rising to his feet.

Perhaps this way either the angel would a) find out that he took pleasure in making other people than Crowley happy and therefore his defective coding would be fixed by giving him more than one object to obsess over or b) the sneaking suspicion that Crowley was totally _not_ harbouring about the angel saying he was happy to be loaned out just to try and please him would be proven which would lead to c) Crowley being sure that somehow he had an angel who at least _thought_ it had free will enough to love on its own terms.

Then again, there was always d).

Crowley did not want to think about d).

***

“Castiel, this is my friend, Sam,” Crowley indicated towards his young protégé when the angel had been summoned. “I want you to do whatever he wants until I come back, all right?”

“Yes, Master.”

Well. So that seemed to be functioning properly. Crowley and Sam exchanged a look and a shrug.

“I, uh… am going to go help Ruby in the kitchen,” the seasoned attorney stammered and backed out of the room, leaving Castiel and Sam apparently studying each other with unreadable expressions.

Sam slowly ran his tongue over the edges of his teeth, contemplating Crowley’s pet. Like anyone, he was quite familiar with the adage that compared the practitioners of his chosen profession to heartless demons. But he’d known Crowley for years now and he could definitely tell that - as far as attorneys went - the senior partner at Crowley & Cain, LLP had a bit of a soft, mushy middle. He liked to root for the underdog. He loved contract law because he loved words and he loved the power of using them in order to achieve his ends. He was extremely good at his job, but nothing like his business partner - Cain - who had brought in all the multi-million dollar deals that kept the firm shitting pounds of gold.

Still. This was different. Crowley getting ideas about angels and free will could lead down a dangerous path. And it was Sam’s job to make sure that didn’t happen. As much for Crowley’s benefit as for his own.

“Castiel, come,” he finally beckoned the angel closer and patted his own lap. “Sit over here, let me have a good look at you.”

“How would you like me, Sir?”

So far, so good.

“Facing me,” Sam responded and indicated his lap again. He leaned back into the couch, making more space for the angel to straddle his thighs. 

Hmm, yes. He could certainly see why Crowley had chosen this one. He was… quite breathtaking, actually. Whereas his Gabriel was petite and more toy-like in stature and facial expressions, this one had some kind of a still dignity about him. He held himself with the poise of an ancient Greek statue (and with equally regal build as well). He couldn’t see the angel’s wings since they weren’t displayed, and had it not been for the thin collar, there would be nothing at all to tell him apart from any other (ungodly handsome) human. And that was fine, Sam really wasn’t that much into the wing kink that other angel owners liked to indulge in. He liked them for what they were: enthusiastic and expert lovers.

“Take off your shirt,” Sam suggested, helping the angel get rid of the loose-fitted tunic he had been wearing. That article of clothing discarded, he could admire the angel better.

Sam ran his hand up the rippling skin of the angel’s stomach, feeling the muscles there hitch from mounting excitement. He looked up and grinned, finding the angel smiling benevolently back at him.

“You’re very pretty, Castiel,” Sam admitted, pulling the angel closer so that he could press gentle kisses to his neck, right above the collar.

“Thank you, Sir. So are you.”

Sam laughed into the angel’s warm, sugary-scented skin. That small phrase reminded him of his own angel, who, granted, was a lot more sassy and likely a lot less… complex.

“Did you have a nice time with my Gabe?” he asked, hands trailing up Castiel’s flanks and over his chest, teasing the small nubs that stood to attention and begged to be tasted. The angel shivered in pleasure again and nodded.

“Yeah, Gabe also… smells like you a bit,” Sam buried his nose in the crook of the angel’s neck again and inhaled. Sugar and… something… almond latte.

“I know him well,” the angel suddenly responded. “Gabriel is my broodmate.”

That was unexpected.

“You mean, like… your brother?”

“That is what your people’s equivalent would be, I suppose, yes.”

“Huh,” Sam smiled wickedly while contemplating the possibilities. “Well, your brood certainly produced some fine specimens.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

He was polite, seemingly docile, but there was something about the way this bird talked back to him that went a bit beyond the kind of dialogue he had come to expect from angels. Oh well, time to find out how he did that voodoo that they did so well. Sam pulled at the band of the angel’s slacks, and Castiel eagerly helped him remove them and carefully lay them on the couch next to them. He wore nothing underneath, as was customary, and Sam was pleased to discover that the creature was already well on his way to sporting a sizeable boner.

“My oh my, Castiel, you are a big boy.”

“I am a fully grown adult male,” the bird replied, fixing Sam with a confused stare, accompanied by a head-tilt. It was, for lack of a better word, fetching. And it exposed the side of that sinfully long neck again, so Sam pulled the angel closer, letting his lips, teeth and tongue play over the ligaments there.

The angel whimpered and pressed into Sam’s embrace, grinding into his lap. It seemed the bird needed very little encouragement, which was normal. 

“Come on, little bird,” Sam cajoled the angel, one of his hands cupping himself through his slacks suggestively. “Come ride me. Show me how much you like having me inside you.”

Castiel’s fingers worked quickly, freeing Sam from the confines of his clothes. He seemed attentive and keen on pleasing, gifting the young attorney with a shower of soft kisses as he worked his erection free. Sam liked this bird. If Crowley really didn’t want him, and Dean seemed incapable of properly claiming him, he’d be _more_ than happy to take the angel off their hands. Besides, Gabe could use another playmate.

***

Drinking coffee in the kitchen with Ruby, Crowley watched the monitor with a stoic expression. There was his little pet, riding the gigantic Moose, head thrown back in obvious ecstasy. Crowley remembered that expression. The way his eyes glazed over, the way you could practically make out little sparks of lightning between his parted lips.

And it looked like Sam was having a quality time too, judging by his facial expressions. (Crowley had been thankful the monitor wasn’t in HD.)

Ruby grinned and pushed a tin of pastries towards him obligingly.

“Sam’s really good with them. The angels, I mean. He’s like an angel whisperer.”

“I thought they were all supposed to be totally compliant, regardless of who’s giving orders?” Crowley tore his eyes from the screen and forced himself to focus on her; it was only polite.

“Yeah, but I feel like he’s just better at it, you know? He’s good with dogs too.” Ruby shrugged and sipped her own coffee.

Right. Most people equated angels with dogs, Crowley reminded himself, and really it would be good if he could remember that.

On the small screen, his angel threw his head back and screamed in ecstasy, unloading all over his young apprentice’s chest. The screen, of course, had been silent, but he could hear his cries from the kitchen. Sam and Ruby’s house wasn’t quite as spacious as his own abode.

Maybe the angel was fixed? Maybe everything was going to be normal again? Maybe Crowley was just being overly paranoid about this whole thing? Yes. Surely. That had to be it. He gave Ruby another friendly smile and asked her seemingly benign questions about work.

***

Once the pair had cleaned up, and Castiel had been left with Gabriel again to do whatever it was angels did when there were no humans around, Sam came into the kitchen looking rather pleased with himself.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with him that I can see,” he said, pushing at a non-existent errant strand of hair. It was never out of place, but he was known to preen from time to time. 

“Physically, of course not,” Crowley agreed, wishing he didn’t feel quite so annoyed that the pair of them could apparently enjoy one another’s… company… without the awkwardness he felt about the whole situation. Maybe _he_ was the one who was wrong in the head?

“I mean, if we wanted to truly check whether it was him or - uh - you… we’d probably need to have you collar and use another angel. See if you felt… awkward around them, too.”

Oh… no. Crowley thought one bird was bad enough, and if it _was_ some latent lack of perspective on his own part, he could do without two of the damned things obsessing over him. “I think I’ll keep that idea on the backburner,” he said, which was polite for ‘no’.

“Okay. Well. He seems to like pleasing people plenty, so you can see if that makes it any less weird for you now. But if you really feel awkward about him, we’ve always got room for another - right, honey?”

Ruby nodded, sucking on her lower lip. “Mmm. Yeah, sweetie. He looked like a nice, strong boytoy. And we could put him in with Gabe.”

“Thanks,” Crowley said, trying to sound properly appreciative. “I’ll take him home and see how it goes.”

“Don’t mention it.”

***

When they got in the limo, Castiel was beaming complacently like there was nothing wrong in the world. He looked happy and like he’d enjoyed the thorough boning Crowley’s junior had given him. But the minute the car pulled away, he was back to looking pensive and confused.

“You had a good time, then?”

Castiel nodded. “Yes, Master. Thank you, Master.”

“Right. Good.”

Crowley should be asking him more of those questions he wasn’t supposed to ask, but he couldn’t for the life of him voice any of them.

“Sir?”

He jumped at that. Castiel rarely initiated conversation. But - well - he wasn’t normal, was he?

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, Sir. I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“What you want of me,” Castiel said, sounding mournful again. “I thought… I thought you wanted me to please Master Sam. I thought that you would be proud of me if I did.”

“Yes. Yes. I am.”

There was a moment of silence where they both examined the other. Crowley _had_ explicitly asked Cas to do it, of course. But he was still a little peeved in some respects to find he would do it. Yes, he was aware he was being contradictory, and no wonder Castiel was wrong-footed. Crowley himself didn’t begin to understand.

“Why are you sad?”

“I’m not.”

“You… still don’t want me?” Cas asked, with an expression bordering on complete and utter betrayal. God damnit. There was no way anyone could convince him this creature was any less intelligent or feeling than he was. How could you? How could you look into a face like that and see artifice? Crowley was a bloody lawyer. It was his _job_ to find subterfuge. It was more than just words, it was people-reading. And right now, his angel looked heartbroken all over again.

“Did you enjoy your time with Sam?”

Cas’ eyes narrowed.

“Answer me, Castiel. Come on.”

Flustered, he shuffled in his seat. “Yes. Sir. When it happened. I like… to have sex. And I like to make you happy. I thought I was doing both, Sir.”

“... ‘When it happened’?” Crowley repeated.

“Yes, Sir. Now… now I see I made you angry with me, and I am… unhappy. It was not my intent.”

So now he was expressing regret, too. Hmm. Interesting. “So if I took your collar off, and told you to do what you wanted--?”

He’d never seen alarm flare so suddenly. “I would ask you to put it back on, Sir!”

“Okay, but if you didn’t want it back on, then you would--?”

Cas shook his head vehemently. Apparently the concept was too… charged. “I would want it back on, Sir.”

He was clearly getting nowhere with that. “Alright. Fine. If you had to pick, wouldn’t you rather go to Sam and spend time with him, Ruby and Gabriel? They would enjoy your company, and you theirs.”

“I want to be with you, Sir.”

“Even if I don’t want to… touch you?”

He seemed to wither back into the seat at that, sullen and hurt. “Yes.”

“You’d still want to be with me, even if I refused to touch you?”

“You are my Master, Sir. I love you. I want to make you happy.”

“And if I asked you to sleep with Sam again?”

“I would do whatever made you happiest, Sir.”

“Even though you enjoy having sex?”

The poor creature was distraught by the whole conversation, and Crowley felt like a dick for putting him through it.

“Come here, Cas,” he said. His voice was a little softer. “I’m just trying to understand you. That’s all.”

He didn’t need to ask twice. Within moments the bird was pressed up alongside him, arms around his waist, head on his shoulder and a quiet little hum in the back of his throat. “I know, Master. I wish I was what you wanted. I am sorry.”

Crowley pushed fingers through his fine, thick hair and kissed at his temple. “I just don’t want to use you, that’s all.”

“Even if I want you to?”

“Even if you want me to.”

Castiel’s fingers tightened on him, and Crowley felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. The angel had been right, after all. He’d only gone and fallen in love, hadn’t he? It was all the height of cruelty. How could he expect such an empathic and caring creature to do anything but feel the same?

“Come on. Let’s just get home. I won’t try to give you away any more, Cas. I’m sorry.”

The angel simply nodded and burrowed in closer. Crowley wrapped protectively around him. He could feel the vibrations travel into his chest from the most subtle of purrs. Watching Castiel with Sam had convinced him: he never wanted to see anyone else touch his angel, ever again.


	6. Chapter 6

When they got back home, Crowley wriggled until Castiel got the picture and reluctantly let him get up. He climbed out of the back of the limo and held his hand out for his angel. Castiel took it without hesitation and he didn’t seem to find it weird when Crowley didn’t let go, either. If his driver noticed, Crowley didn’t hear about it.

They went back into the house in silence, and proceeded straight to the bedroom. The angel looked hopeful, but not convinced, which Crowley supposed was fair. They’d only done this once, after all, and Crowley had since then spent all of his time trying to palm the damn beast off onto various members of the Winchester clan. No wonder the angel was nervous. He probably thought he was a bad lay, when nothing could have been further from the truth.

“I want to get you clean,” Crowley told him. “I want to…” He swallowed. He didn’t _quite_ want to admit he was trying to wash Sam’s handprints and worse from his skin, but it was how he felt. His angel was sullied through the tawdry way he’d passed him around. Crowley didn’t want that. He wanted him to be special. To be his.

(He was going to Hell. Or he was going to the lunatic asylum. He wasn’t sure which, just that he was no longer able to lie to himself. He wanted Castiel, and he wanted him badly.)

Castiel simply nodded. Either he understood, or he agreed, or both. He shimmied out of his simple clothes and went into the bathroom without any further instruction, then he stood and waited to see what would come next.

Crowley should probably have had the angel undress him, too, but he didn’t want that right now. He shucked off his own clothing and put it in a mostly neat pile, then he turned the water on in the walk-in shower. He kept testing it until it was just right, then he beckoned Castiel to join him under the spray.

Damn, but the angel looked happy, now. Really happy. Crowley wondered if it was his imagination, or if he looked somehow _happier_ than he had when he’d finished riding Sam, and he took a perverse pride in that. He rubbed wet hands over the muscular shoulders in front of him, biting his lip as Castiel moaned in bliss. The angel’s eyes were shut and he was arching into each touch. Damn, but he was pretty. Blushing himself, Crowley slid his hands down to the angel’s dark nipples and _twisted_ a little more sharply than once he might have. He was rewarded by open-mouthed panting, and hands that twitched by the angel’s sides.

“You… can touch me,” he told his pet, quietly. “If you want to.”

Crowley gave the angel a shy, coquettish smile that he had no right in offering, considering what he was prepared to do (and, indeed, had already done) but Cas nodded. “Thank you, Master.”

The damned thing was a mind-reader. Either that or he really _was_ empathic to the point of knowing Crowley’s wants the moment before he did. Castiel laid one hand flat over his too-fast heart, the other cupping his cheek and angling his head slightly upwards, the better to lean in for a kiss. It started slow, but slow in that sweltering the-world-is-about-to-end way. The angel’s lips were soft and kind, and with their heads tilted out of the stream of water, Crowley found he could take his time to explore them properly. He slid one hand over the back of the angel’s neck - bumping over the narrow collar, over his nape, and up into his beautiful hair, his other hand still toying at one nipple. One sharp twist of finger and thumb and the angel’s mouth opened like a blossoming flower, and Crowley surged into it, stroking his tongue deep to taste that increasingly familiar taste that was so peculiarly him. 

Crowley walked him a little back out of the spray, so it was only pounding down his own back and trickling down the curve of his calves. He kept on kissing Castiel - only breaking for the occasional swallow of air and nip of his lips - and scratched his fingernails carefully down the angel’s spine, wondering if it was still as sensitive even with the wings hidden as they were now. He found himself suddenly grateful that Cas hadn’t displayed them for Sam, because it meant they were all _his_ , and the surge of possessive pride ended in a grab of angelic ass and a shove of groin-to-groin. The angel was _more_ than ready for him, because his cock was bumping against Crowley’s own and making it increasingly hard to think. He carried on backing him up, until he’d slammed him ass-first into the nearest cold, tiled wall. 

“ _Christ_ , but I want you,” he growled, finally stopping the kisses for long enough to bite at the side of his jaw and over the throat that the angel all-too-willingly bared. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Cas agreed. “Please, Master. Please. I just want to make you happy. Please. Please let me make you happy?”

Fuck. Crowley grabbed hold of Cas’ cock and pulled it to lie flush with his own, wrapping his hand clumsily around both shafts in one. Cas’ dick was silky and damp, and it felt hideously decadent and gloriously wrong to stroke them off together, whilst he yanked hard on the angel’s hair. Every time he tugged - either hair or prick - Cas would gasp and moan and _writhe_ with an abandon that Crowley envied. He’d had very appreciative lovers in the past, of course, but none of them had seemed so _pleased_ to be with him as Cas did.

“You’re mine, angel,” he growled. “You belong to me. No one else. Just me.”

“Yes!” he yelped, grabbing hold of Crowley’s ass and the back of his neck, riding each slide of hand between them. He looked like he was barely managing to stay upright. “Master, _yes_!”

Because, Crowley realized, his bird **did** want that, and so did he, and why should he deny either of them something that made them both happy? Why, unless he was a complete and utter shit? There was nothing wrong in mutual pleasure, and certainly nothing wrong in wanting to take _care_ of his angel, especially if his angel wanted to do the same for him. That’s what a relationship _was_ , right?

“Come for me,” he barked, turning his head and biting down carefully over the front of his throat - above the collar - redoubling his efforts at jerking them to oblivion as he held the angel’s head back.

He didn’t have long to wait, because with a howl of pleasure the angel humped his hand - fingernails scratching over his neck and ass - and he was coming in hot, messy, pretty little spurts. Crowley hissed against his jugular, stroking the emissions over his own dick, using it as a lubricant and then - _fuck_ \- fuck yes - with an answering cry of his own he was coming, too. He beat them off until he could barely stand, and his angel was no better, slumped and panting against the wall. Crowley let his weight fall forwards - the hands behind him helping with that - and dropped his head onto Castiel’s shoulder.

Shit. **Shit** , but that had been mind-blowing. His knees felt like jelly and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to move any time soon.

“Thank you, Master,” Castiel cooed appreciatively, fawning against his cheek and stroking soothing hands where a moment ago he’d been clawing like a thing possessed.

“Don’t call me that, Cas.”

Cas paused - evidently deep in thought. “My love?” he suggested, in a tone that was far too shy.

“Yes. Yes, you can call me that.”

“Then I will… my love,” Cas purred, and pulled him tighter still.

It made the heart in Crowley’s chest ache. He was so monumentally screwed.


	7. Chapter 7

“Hang on, Moose… let me just take this call in private,” Crowley said, ignoring the little pout from the angel who was trying to kiss every inch of his torso in the aftermath of another thorough fucking. Apparently the little deviant wanted nothing more than to spend all his time making Crowley fall sickeningly further in love with him.

He pushed him off with a little ‘shoo’, blew him a kiss and then wandered out of the bedroom with the phone held to his ear. “Okay. Shoot.”

“So, get this,” Sam started, and Crowley knew it was serious. This was what the younger man always said when he was about to make or break a case. “I’ve been doing some more research and I think I found your answer.”

“The suspense is literally killing me,” Crowley replied. Even though the ironic use of the word ‘literally’ was probably equally as painful as the suspense was. “Please. Continue.”

“See, angels do reproduce, which is common knowledge. What’s not so common knowledge is that while they can do it with any member of the opposite gender of their species, there’s several occurrences where two of them… pair-bond? You know. Mate?”

“You mean like… what, precisely?” Crowley asked.

“Uh. It’s hard to get a definitive answer, but everything I’ve found suggests they sort of… mate for life? I can’t work out if it really stops them from still being useful or not, but they do show a very strong preference for their - uh - other half. And reading between the lines, it seems they then just get turned into breeding stock and aren’t used elsewhere.”

“And you think this is relevant because…?”

“Just the descriptions seem to sort of make sense with what you described. There’s a few rumours about them ‘imprinting’ on humans, but yours might be even more unique since he’s stuck on you instead of something of the opposite gender. They normally seem to pick physically - uh - compatible partners? Like… optimal breeding suitability. So that’s the bit that doesn’t make sense, unless he’s more wired to - I guess - emotionally bond with you?”

Crowley felt he should pick his words carefully. “So you’re saying we’re soul-mates?” 

“I’m saying he thinks you’re his mate, and whatever, he’s likely going to remain hung up on you, so you’re probably stuck holding his leash forever. But if you want to pass him around, he’ll likely agree, so long as you don’t actually try to get rid of him again.”

“I… see. Well. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, man.”

“I’ll see you in the office on Monday,” Crowley promised.

“Yeah. Later.” 

Crowley hung up and tapped the phone to his lips, wondering. So… he’d picked an angel who valued emotion over reproduction? He’d somehow found a romantic bird, and his own… lovelorn leanings meant they’d… clicked? Or something? Sam had been right when he’d said he’d have to road-test owning another angel to make sure it was a ‘them’ thing and not a ‘him’ thing, but the fact no one else seemed to have encountered his problem before made him strongly suspect it was ‘them’, together, not him alone.

He peered around the doorframe, watching the angel curl up in the spot he’d been. His arms were flung under the pillow and he was apparently completely content with waiting for something else to do, wiggling his toes and arching his back and generally fidgeting - but peacefully, somehow - humming the start of a broken song to himself. 

Was it really any different to two humans falling in love? It wasn’t as if he himself had had any choice in this matter. He’d been attracted to his face, then attracted to his smile, then concerned with his happiness and now head over heels in love with the damned bird. How was his experience any lesser or greater than Castiel’s? The only difference was he’d bought and paid for the other creature, and whispered words of ownership, and Castiel had no choice but to obey.

Except… he sort of had. Crowley had _tried_ \- twice - to give him the chance to change his mind; either through another’s hand on his leash or on his prick. And both times the angel had insisted - quite beyond what he should have been capable of - that he’d choose Crowley over the brothers. 

Crowley was no philosopher, to be sure, and although he dealt with legalese and definitions all day long… he didn’t think he was truly in a position to make a definitive judgement on this. It was all a little too metaphysical for him. Not to mention, all of society and everything he’d ever known flew in the face of what he felt in his heart to be true.

“Cas,” he called out, watching with pride as the bird beamed up at him hopefully. “Get dressed. We’re going out for a bit.”

“Yes, my love.”

He had an idea for something he wanted to do. Something to show his affection, even if it was only in a small, private way.

If his angel enjoyed his wings being tied, then Crowley was just going to have to learn how to do it himself.

***

They were lying in bed together, limbs intertwined, their heads sharing the same pillow, leaving the rest of the California King vast and empty like the desert. Crowley’s eyes were closed but his fingertips did work enough for all his other senses, sliding along the outlines of Castiel’s skin, trying to memorize his features through touch alone. They bumped against the cold hardness of the collar, inevitably.

“I want to take this off you,” he whispered against his angel’s lips and was not surprised to feel Castiel stiffening in his embrace. Suppose Sam had been right. Suppose Castiel was imprinted, mated, bonded, whatever to him. Wasn’t that also some kind of coding? How was that different from the obedience programmed into them by the collar? And why couldn’t he just turn his brain off and enjoy the gift that God and the Universe had bestowed upon him? _Dammit!_

“Don’t,” Castiel whispered back. Crowley already knew his pet’s… lover’s feelings on the matter. But still. He had to try again.

“You want to make me happy, don’t you?”

“Of course, my love.”

“So, just try taking it off then. What could be the harm?”

“Angels need order and obedience. We cannot exist without the collar. Without our Masters.”

“But I’m not going anywhere, silly bird.” Crowley placed a small kiss on the tip of Castiel’s nose, and ran his fingers through the downy feathers at the base of his wings. “It would really please me if I could better access your neck, you know, without this _thing_ getting in my way."

“I can’t,” Cas insisted.

“Why not? You didn’t _come_ with it on. When I bought you was the first time you wore a collar, wasn’t it?”

Miserably, the angel nodded.

“So you functioned fine without it before it got put in place, and that means you should be just as safe without it on now, surely?”

“No, please. I’m scared. What if something goes wrong?”

“Just for a few minutes?” Crowley didn’t know why he had to keep pushing this. Clearly, the creature had been terrified. He shivered and pressed closer into his master’s embrace, forehead pressed doggedly against his lips (so Crowley kissed him there to soothe him). “Why do you think something will go wrong?”

“It’s what they’ve always said.”

“They?”

“The Elders.”

“Cas,” Crowley had an idea, fingers still curled in the short, soft feathers along his angel’s spine. “Do you know… how… how did the angels become enslaved?”

“We’re not enslaved. Our Masters liberated us.”

“Castiel, what are you talking about?” Crowley could genuinely not wrap his mind around this. Either the programming was really strong, or else these angel creatures were entirely too otherworldly for him to comprehend.

“We are sensitive. You already know that,” the angel began to explain, lips brushing gently against Crowley’s chest as he spoke. “We can perceive more than just physical touch. We know what you want, often before you’re even aware of it. That kind of power, it’s… dangerous. Had to be contained. We only wanted to please, never to hurt you. So when the humans finally figured out a way to bind our wings… It was safer for everyone that way.”

Something flashed in Crowley’s mind. Something very close to fear.

“Cas, what would happen if your wings were unbound?”

The angel shuddered again.

“I only had them unbound when I was a fledgling. But that was before we reach our full power and breeding age. They were already in binding before they reached their final span, before I could hurt anyone. I would never want to hurt you, my love.”

_Angels_ , Crowley thought. The name suited these creatures well. They were beings of pure light and empathy, and surrendered their freedom to their human masters at the mere thought of causing them some undue harm. How was it right to keep them bound and enslaved? How could any of this be just and _legal_?

“Cas, you won’t hurt me,” Crowley whispered, feeling his eyes burn and wanting to extinguish his own doubts with kisses from the angel’s lips, like a man dying of thirst in the desert. “I promise, you won’t hurt me. Just let me take it off for an hour. For a few minutes. Please?”

The angel must have felt how earnest Crowley’s desire was and his lip quivered.

“This is really important to you, my love?”

“It is.”

“All right then. But…”

“Yes, Cas?”

“You promise this isn’t just another trick to try and get rid of me?”

Crowley pulled his angel closer, kissing him deeply, hoping that Castiel would be able to feel everything he couldn’t quite put into words. It was as the angel had said: sometimes they knew what their masters wanted before their masters did. He was careful to avoid the sensitive knots underneath his wings as he dug his fingers into the angel’s back, kneading the tension out of his taut muscles.

“I love you, Cas. I would never try to get rid of you again.”

“Then take it off.”

Crowley gently stroked his hand down Castiel’s (sinfully beautiful) cheekbones and pressed another reassuring kiss to his lips before pulling forward the key that he wore on the long chain around his own neck. In some way, he thought, they had both been collared. He quickly unlocked the metal latch - before the angel had time to change his mind - and pulled the collar off, tossing it over to the other side of the bed. Close enough to reassure Castiel, but far enough for it to be out of sight.

“There,” Crowley said, running his hand down the angel’s swanlike neck, from his jaw to the sharp collarbones. His angel was beautiful and perfect as only Nature could have made him. “Not so bad, right?”

Castiel purred and leaned into his touch, in the same feline way he had while he was still collared. Clearly, that impulse had not been affected, just as Crowley had hoped.

“Do you still love me?” Crowley asked, his eyes sparkling mischievously.

“Yes, my love,” the angel beamed back at him.

“Good,” Crowley breathed against the freshly liberated neck, enjoying the little shivers this seemed to send up and down the angel’s spine. “Let’s just see how it goes then.”

He was hoping that with a little practice, he’d be able to enjoy Castiel’s company on (relatively-speaking) equal footing, only having to resort to putting the collar back on him if they went out in public. It seemed like such a small thing to him, but he knew that it would fly in the face of laws and propriety all at once. Much as he cared little for convention, law was something he could not simply disregard, as it was, in a way, his purview.


	8. Chapter 8

“Look,” Dean Winchester said taking a sip of his coffee (no sugar, black as night), “I recognize that look on your face. Whatever it is you’re thinking about doing - don’t.”

Crowley gave his friend a conciliatory smile and sipped his own cappuccino, slowly, savoring the way the foam tickled his lip.

“I don’t know what you mean, Detective.”

“I’m glad you’re looking… um… happier these days. Let’s just go with that. Don’t go poking into things you need not be poking, alright?” 

Crowley knew he could trust Dean, but trusting him would have put the Detective into equal danger. And the truth of it was, he’d been taking a closer look into the _Legem Angelorum_ , to see if he could poke some holes in the Angel Laws. Something that might at least allow him to legally free Castiel. (So he could marry him. _No_. Yes. Blast it!)

“The only thing I’ve been _poking_ , Dean-o, has been my angel. Which, last time I checked, was perfectly legal.” Crowley toasted the detective with his coffee drink, a gesture which Dean was about to return, had it not been for the ringing of his phone.

“Bobby, talk to me,” he said, picking up the call from his boss. Crowley raised a curious eyebrow, straining to overhear the conversation. Dean took out a small notepad and began to quickly scribble in it. “What does he look like? Uh-huh…. Spell that for me?... B-A-L-T-H-A-Z-A-R. Balthazar? What kind of a fucking name…. Yeah. Yeah. I got this, Bobby.”

“Trouble?” Crowley asked.

“An escaped angel, if you would believe it.” Dean shrugged. “Never heard of one of them cutting loose before.”

“Balthazar? That his name, is it?”

“That’s the word.” 

Crowley made it a point to remember that word.

“What’s your assignment, Detective?”

“I’m supposed to hunt him down, bring him in.”

“Alive?”

“For now.” Dean rubbed his brow. “This is… I mean… It’s never happened before, right? He must be totally defective. They’re gonna want to put him down. I presume.”

“His owners?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

Crowley could see this wasn’t the kind of work Dean had signed up for. Hunting down stray angels, much like stray dogs, was something he considered to be beneath him.

“Well, you be careful, Dean. There’s no telling what those creatures are capable of.” Crowley patted his friend on the shoulder and quickly exited the cafe.

He needed to talk to Castiel about this. An escaped angel? It was uncanny, unheard of. Something had to be done.

***

“My love!” Castiel called out as soon as he was through the door, leaping into his arms and showering him with kisses. 

Once they’d worked through the awkward stage, Crowley had been pleased to come home to such amorous greetings regularly. It wasn’t even just the mindblowing sex he was enjoying (which, let’s be honest, he really bloody _was_ ) it was the affection and companionship. Now that his bird was convinced of his place in the household, he was much happier to talk for as long as Crowley would listen. He hugged his angel back - returning the flurry of kisses with a little laugh - and then put his hand on Castiel’s back and guided him into the study he liked to unwind in.

Cas poured him a Craig (because he insisted that if he didn’t have a job to earn money, the least Crowley could let him do would be perform little tasks to show his devotion) and then perched - gracefully - on the arm of his chair, legs dangling and head tilted to one side.

“You seem worried, love?”

“Yes. A little. Dean - you remember Dean? - we met up for coffee and he got a call out. You know an angel called Balthazar?”

Cas nodded, his expression curious. “Yes. I remember him. He was a few years older than me. Not one of my brood-mates, but he was something of a mentor to the younger angels until he reached maturity and went to find his owner. Why?”

Now here was the difficult part. How did Crowley raise this? “He - ah - he’s in trouble, Cas. Somehow he’s managed to… go rogue? He’s on the run from his master, and from the law.”

His angel’s eyes widened. “He… ran?”

“Yes. Apparently so. I don’t know how, or why, or anything… I just know the police are out looking for him.”

“He was a good angel,” Castiel insisted, clutching at Crowley’s arm. “He was always friendly and loving. I do not understand. I do not know why he-- maybe he is sick?”

The lawyer patted his lover’s hand reassuringly. “I don’t know, either. But if you say he was good, then there must be a reason. Why don’t I ask Dean to let me know if they catch him? Maybe we could help him out?”

The response was an angel curled in against his side, burrowing his face against his cheek and his arms around him. “If you could, I would be forever grateful, love.”

“Then consider it done.”

There was, after all, little Crowley wouldn’t do for his beloved. And if it meant he understood the species better, too, then it was two birds… one stone.

***

“You sure about this?” Dean asked, drumming the pen between his fingers up and down, up and down, tapping at the release forms. This - again - he considered ‘beneath’ him, but because Crowley had made the request personally he of course felt obligated to wade in.

Crowley appreciated the concern. It was nice to know if he finally completely lost his marbles, that at least _one_ person would try to be the voice of sanity.

“I’m sure. Cas knows him. Says he’s good, really. Thinks perhaps he got sick or something, and that if we’re careful with him we might be able to sort him out.”

“You’re too hung up on that damned bird sometimes, you know? Well. Whatever. It’s your funeral. The owner - Alastair - had someone drop off the key as soon as the green stuff hit his account.”

“Where do I sign?” Crowley asked.

“Here… you’re lucky he didn’t perpetuate any property damage, other than on his old owner’s estate. But because you’re gonna be legally responsible for any further damage or crimes he might commit...”

“I know, I know. I read the fine print before I signed for the one I already have. If he gets too much for me, I’ll work something out then.” He took the pen Dean held out and scribbled in his very neat, legally binding name. “Take me to him.”

“You bet. Although I still think you’re taking this midlife crisis thing a bit too far, you know. Getting two, huh?” Dean gave Crowley a cocky look that the older man did not appreciate. “Are you compensating or something?”

“Your brother works for me, you know,” Crowley grit out between his teeth, flashing his most threatening look towards Dean. They both knew it was an empty threat, but his manhood had been questioned, and it was the least he could do.

“Right,” Dean slapped him on the shoulder. “Do what you must. Follow me.”

Crowley followed Dean back to the cells. He’d been down here a few times before in his career - thankfully not that often - but he’d never come to bail or bust someone out before. He tried to work out which of the cells they would be stopping at, and was surprised when Dean halted them.

Behind the bars, the creature staring out at them was a little less… ‘angelic’ than he’d been used to. He had similar facial scruff to Castiel, but his hair was much thinner and shorter. There were - as Cas had said - a few years’ difference between them. It wasn’t that he was unattractive, though. Oh no. There was something in this one’s eyes that did remind him a little of Castiel: it was that almost-gateway to something more, and a quirk to his lips that said the angel was _not_ a walkover.

Had it not been for the thin, but sturdy ring around his throat, Crowley would have taken Balthazar for any other human.

“Yo, Balty,” Dean said, wrapping his hands around the bars. “I got good news for you. Seems this good Samaritan here’s bought and paid for you. So you _will_ be leaving here, after all.”

The angel cocked his head to one side - almost as Cas would - and his eyes met Crowley’s. For a minute, they just eyed one another up. If Balthazar was capable of running away from Alastair, Crowley suspected he’d be able to run from him, too. The angel had to know that, and know that Crowley knew it, too. But for the moment, he was under lock and key of a kind he couldn’t shake, so he would just have to play along. That was - if he knew what was good for him.

“Castiel sends his regards,” Crowley decided to offer.

There was a flicker of understanding, then, and he knew Balthazar was going to play along, to start with, anyway. The angel nodded in acknowledgement, and walked closer to the bars. His wrists were cuffed and he pushed them forward to Dean.

“Not just yet, hot shot. Gotta do the transfer thing. So back it up, and we’ll come in there. Capiche?”

“Yes,” Balthazar replied, just one word but in an accent that was strangely familiar. Not one Crowley had heard in a while. Interesting.

The bird went to the far side of his cage and waited patiently for them to come in. Dean was a bit wrong-footed, Crowley could tell, because the detective was doing the huffy thing he did when he wasn’t happy. He glanced a hand on his shoulder, then held out his palm for the key. Dean dropped it in and then stood closer to the entrance, giving them more space.

Well, Crowley thought. If Balthazar could - like Castiel - read his intent and desires, then he had to hope he’d be able to see his motives were an earnest need to help and understand, not hurt. That was if the bird was still capable of sensing things, and didn’t have some hitherto undiscovered disease affecting his senses and his decision making. He had to hope not.

Balthazar lifted his chin and offered his throat, allowing Crowley to unfasten the collar. Really Alastair should have done it, but having the key was all that was actually necessary. He let the bird crick his neck, and then he refastened it himself.

“I am your Master. You are mine. I will take care of you,” he said, the words coming easier this time. 

“Yes, Master.”

Crowley slipped the key onto the chain already about his neck, letting it fall side by side with Castiel’s. Once he’d never considered owning one, and now he had two: one who might not even follow him, and one who refused to leave.

“Come here,” he said, quietly. He wanted to test the limits of the angel’s obedience.

Balthazar leaned in but didn’t initiate the kiss, so Crowley cupped his cheek gently and pecked him quickly on the lips. It was enough to satisfy the needs of coding, and anything else could wait.

“Dean… would you be so kind as to uncuff him? It’s time I took my angel home.”

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say, man.”

Balthazar waited patiently as he was released, and then he looked to Crowley for further guidance.

“I have a limo waiting. Come on. Castiel is keen to see you again. I believe it’s been some time.”

“Yes, Master. It has.”


	9. Chapter 9

The ride back was quiet. Crowley had a hundred questions he wanted to ask, but they felt so… inflammatory and risqué that he didn’t want to take the chance until they got home. Balthazar seemed happy enough to ride in silence, and Crowley couldn’t help but remember the drive back with Castiel. It had taken him long enough to warm his own bird up. He suspected this one would be just as awkward - if not more.

“I imagine you’ve got questions,” he said, as the car came into the driveway. “I’ve got a few of my own. Shall we get inside first, and then we can find some way to hopefully make this work for both of us?”

Balthazar nodded regally, and Crowley nearly laughed at the attitude. Well. He really was different. 

Castiel was fluttering madly just behind the door, but to Crowley’s surprise he launched himself first at the other angel, pulling him in and hugging him fawningly. After a little pause - and a glance up to Crowley - Balthazar hugged him back.

“Master said something horrible might happen to you,” Castiel whimpered into the angel’s ear.

Not entirely true. Crowley had said no such worrying thing, but he’d certainly been _thinking_ it, and he suspected that at times Castiel either blurred thought and speech, or else he considered anything broadcast loud enough to be fair game.

“Don’t count me out so easily, Castiel,” Balthazar told him. “But I suppose I do have to say thank you to--” a pause where he clearly faltered over the word “--Master.”

“Well I wasn’t about to let them see you hang and - what the hell are you doing?” Crowley squawked, backing up when Balthazar did that angel-thing they did so well of moving far too fast to be natural, dropping to his knees in front of him with his hands on Crowley’s belt. “Stop that!”

Balthazar blinked up at him, confused. “You saved me,” he pointed out. “Does Master have other preferences?”

“What? No. I mean yes. I mean - would you please just get up from the bloody floor so we can all talk about this sensibly without… without any of _that_.”

The older angel frowned but rose to his feet, taking a step back and covering over what might have been disappointment.

Fucking angels, Crowley thought. Always thinking dick-first. Even _he_ as a relatively healthy, red-blooded male sometimes thought they were borderline nymphomaniac. Or - no. Scratch the ‘borderline’ part. He tugged at his shirt collar with one finger, wishing they’d just… talk first? Yes. That. “Come on. I need a bloody drink, and then I need to talk to you both seriously. Alright? Cas… get him something more appropriate to wear and bring him to the study.”

“Yes, my love.”

Crowley was gratified to see Balthazar look confused over the term of endearment, and he went to get that first drink poured so they wouldn’t see his hand shake.

***

When the angels found him, Crowley had managed to get enough amber liquid in to give himself Dutch courage. Castiel’s clothes were more or less the right fit for the other angel, but to be frank he could have put a potato sack on and looked better than he had in the prison-issue angel-wear.

Crowley waved at the two armchairs he’d had brought in, and waited until they sat down. 

“Right. Time for some ground rules. It’s pretty simple, here. I expect you to say what you want, and what you think. _Not_ what you think I want to hear. I won’t lie to you, and I expect you to extend me the same courtesy. Understand?”

Balthazar nodded. “Yes, Master.”

“Second… you only call me that if you want to. In private, at least. I’m aware that we’re going to have to keep some semblance of normalcy in public, but what happens within these four walls is for our eyes only.”

The older angel looked from Crowley to Castiel, as if to ascertain himself that this was actually happening, and then nodded.

“You will notice,” Crowley continued, “that Cas doesn’t wear his collar at home. I… it took us some time to get there.” He smiled at his angel and reached out to take his hand. It felt grounding. “You can also choose not to wear one. In fact, I’d prefer that you not wear one, unless we’re having company.”

He could sense a conversation taking place between the angels, one that he was definitely not privy to. Nevertheless, he could imagine it going something like this:

“Is this guy for real?”

“Yup, he’s totally out of his mind!”

“Huzzah!”

Crowley shook those thoughts out of his head.

“In that case,” the new angel said aloud, “I graciously accept your hospitality.” He still looked like he had a question, though, and his tongue was poking out past his lips, his eyes roaming over his new master with more intent than Crowley was used to seeing from anyone who wasn’t Castiel.

Shit. Yes. He probably should… “You only have to… engage in activities you want to. It’s not… it’s not essential. And if you find you want to with someone else, if you want me to arrange it, I - ah - can.”

“Do you not… like…?” Balthazar was clearly trying to be discreet.

“I like plenty,” Crowley said, a bit too fast. “But that’s not why I bought you. I bought you because you were in danger and I considered it my moral obligation to protect you. And because… because I don’t agree with how society treats angels, so I want to ask you about why you ran away. But not today. Today is about you getting used to being here.”

Castiel leaned over to the other angel, and put his hand on his knee. “My love will take good care of you,” he promised. “He is kind and caring. You are safe here with us.”

“Do you need anything?” Crowley asked. “I just wanted to get you here sooner rather than later. There are clothes that will fit you, but… ah. Your wings?”

Which was when the angel visibly winced. “You do not need to worry about my wings, M--” He shook his head, still too used to using the term. 

“How about ‘Mr. Crowley’?” he suggested.

“Thank you. My wings are… fine.”

But they weren’t, were they? Crowley could tell the angel was attempting to avoid or conceal something. “Show me?” he asked.

Balthazar looked as if he was about to try and resist the request… but then at the last minute he complied. He rose to his feet and turned to face the wall, pulling his wings into the physical plane.

They were a state. Truly. Not only were many of the flight feathers missing - much like the poor beast they’d seen at the club - what feathers did remain were sometimes missing fronds, or bent, or otherwise unkempt. Crowley had never seen anything quite so heartbreaking. From the reach of them, they were quite something in their prime, too: tawny brown and barred in places, with a proud span. Beside him, Castiel cried out in horror and was back on his feet. Crowley watched with empathy as the younger angel wrapped first arms and then his own wings awkwardly around Balthazar (as much as his bindings would permit him to reach), as if he could somehow shelter and protect him with nothing but his body.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley said, past a lump in his throat. “Will… will they grow back?”

Balthazar nodded mutely.

Crowley stood up and put his hand between the angel’s shoulders. “When they do, you will never lose a single feather again for as long as I can help it,” he promised. “And we’ll have them groomed and cleaned and even bound if it keeps you happy like it does Cas.” He stroked slowly down his back, trying his best to soothe the upset bird.

He was surprised when Balthazar turned around, his throat working past his own dismay. Even more surprised when the angel clutched his hands and kissed him gently on the side of his mouth. A moment of shyness, before he folded his wings back away and his smile turned defensively cheeky again.

“I think I’m going to like it, here.”

***

Castiel had his own room, which he thought was the height of extravagance, considering he spent all his nights in his Master’s bed. 

His Master. Crowley. His love. He had so many names and titles, but only one that resonated in Castiel’s heart. _Mate_. Beloved. He’d never even been able to articulate the very concept of it to Crowley.

It was to this room that he had taken Balthazar. Which, again, wasn’t exactly necessary; the so-called ‘Casa Del Crowley’ had so many rooms that it took Castiel several weeks to figure out that there were actual servants physically residing in it. With them. There was the cook, the gardner, the chauffeur, the housekeeper, and - ah yes, Crowley’s favorite - the tailor. A live-in tailor. It made Castiel wonder sometimes exactly what kind of law his Master practiced, but then again, he wasn’t one to judge people based on their priorities.

With the door closed behind them, Castiel felt the warm touch of his old mentor’s hand on his shoulder.

“Castiel…”

“Balthazar,” Crowley’s angel turned around, facing his old friend. “I never thought I’d see you again. I’m so sorry about…” His fingers trailed gently down the older angel’s cheek.

“Don’t mention it, ducky. Enough about me. Tell me about you.” Balthazar took Castiel’s hand and placed a gentle kiss to the middle of his palm. “You’ve done well for yourself. All this,” he indicated the lavish chamber. “And a Master who adores you and would do anything for you… Oh, present company excluded, apparently.”

Castiel emitted a little shy laugh at his old mentor’s proddings.

“Now if you love him anywhere even half as much…”

“Balthazar…”

“Ducky? What’s the matter? You look positively constipated!”

“Don’t mock me. Just for a second?”

“You are at least half responsible for my life having been saved, I gather, so not mocking you for a second is the least I can do.”

“Balthazar, I love him. I… I haven’t been able to tell anyone.” Castiel looked away shyly again, biting his own lip.

“Well, of course you love him. He’s your Master. It’s your programming.” The older angel shrugged and scrunched up his face, making his distaste for the programming well-known.

“No, Balthazar. I _love_ him.”

“Cassie… You don’t mean… But surely?”

“I know. It makes no sense. We’re not biologically compatible. He’s not even an angel!”

“He’s not even female!”

“Thanks for that.”

“Cassie! You can’t life-bond with a human…. _man_!”

“Well. I have. He tried to give away my collar and it didn’t take,” Castiel declared with equal parts pride and petulance.

Balthazar, who had by then found the mini-bar and had been helping himself to some chilled Sancerre, nearly choked on his wine.

“And why are you drinking that?” Castiel cocked his head to the side.

“A better question would be, my ducky, is why does your master fully stock your mini-bar with all kinds of goodies you apparently have no appreciation for?” Castiel had no answer to that. “You were saying? You’ve life-bonded with your Master. It’s very unconventional, and yet, I would have expected nothing less of you.”

“Thank you. Uh… I think.” Castiel shuffled from foot to foot.

“Try this wine,” the older angel offered. “It will make this conversation a lot less complicated and a lot more interesting.” He poured Cas a glass and handed it over to the younger angel, who took it and sniffed at the contents uncertainly.

He should have probably learned how to drink alcohol earlier. It was true that angels didn’t require any sort of sustenance, but that did not mean they couldn’t partake of it, if they so chose. As for waste, it must have gone to the same place their wings went when they weren’t being displayed, which was to say it was anyone’s guess. After a several long sips, Castiel was starting to feel lax and warm. If he had felt that way before, he would have recognized the feeling for what it was - tipsiness.

“And how is he in the sack?” Balthazar inquired, refilling both their glasses until the bottle was empty.

Castiel blushed.

“Why don’t you see for yourself?”

“Castiel, you brat! I did not get you drunk so you could give _me_ lip!” Balthazar milked the bottle to the last drop and then relinquished it to the rug with a puff of disappointment.

“He’s good. But… Anyways, I love him.”

“He’s good _but_ what?”

“Nothing.” Castiel planted his face firmly into one of the cushions of the bed they were both lounging upon.

“Cassie, you have always been a terrible liar. It is unbecoming in a nice, housebroken angel such as yourself.”

“I can’t. He is my Master, even if he hates it if I call him that.”

“Talking shit about their Masters is the bread and butter of any angel. Now, out with it.”

“You know, it’s this kind of attitude that almost got you killed!” As soon as Castiel said it, he regretted his words. Images of Balthazar’s viciously plucked plumage filled his mind and paralyzed him with horror. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He threw himself into his old friend’s arms again, rubbing their foreheads together in catlike supplication.

“Cas, it’s fine. I’m fine. I will be.” The older angel held his friend tight, fingers gently brushing along the outlines of Castiel’s shoulder blades.

“You must have had such an awful time,” Castiel added, arching into the caring touches. Just out of sight, his own wings rustled, desperate to be touched. But the memory of Balthazar’s ruined plumage kept him from displaying them. He didn’t want to remind the other angel of what he was missing.

“ _Dreadful_ , darling, like you wouldn’t imagine.” Balthazar shuddered over-dramatically. “But I don’t want to talk about that today. I want to know more about your - _our_ \- Master. I want to know whether or not I should stay. He has to know I can run, if I choose to… so tell me. What’s the catch? He must have some flaws. Humans always do.”

Castiel opened his mouth to object, but Balthazar shook his head at him. At his urging, Castiel turned, and when Balthazar settled more comfortably onto the bed, he lay down, putting his head in the older angel’s lap. Cas smiled as clever fingers brushed through his hair, massaging his scalp. Balthazar had always known how to calm Castiel.

“He is wonderful,” Cas insisted on starting out with. “He is kind, caring, loving and generous. He always makes sure he’s pleasing me. He worries that he’s taking advantage of me, he just wants to make me happy…”

“But.”

Castiel withered, and only the digits rubbing his temples made him go on.

“...the first time we made love, he tried to untie my wings.”

The fingers stopped. “He did? I’m guessing not to play butcher, either, as he doesn’t seem to have it in him.”

Even the thought made Castiel baulk, something sticking in his craw. “No! No. He… Balthazar… he does not _understand_... he tries so hard to please, you might mistake him for an angel himself!”

“Oh, ducky… trust you! Trust you to fall in love with a Master who doesn’t want to be a Master…”

“Please,” he begged. “Don’t judge him.”

“I’m not. I’m just surprised. Normally the people who buy us… know what they’re getting. Some a little too well, if you ask me.”

“I just wish… I just wish he understood. It’s not hurting me. It’s not using me. Not if I **want** it.”

“And he’s leaving you unfulfilled, while he tries so very hard to treat you with respect… oh, Cas. Cas! Only you could wind up stuck like this.”

“I know,” he replied, miserably. “But I love him. I couldn’t leave him even if he asked me to… again.”

“Well, then. It seems I’m going to have to show your old dog a few new tricks.”

“Balthazar!”

“Oh, hush,” he said, with a kiss to Castiel’s nose. “Consider it my wedding gift to you. You deserve all the happiness in the world. And if he’s as keen on listening to us and our desires as you say… well. Perhaps there’s hope for you both yet.”

Castiel was blushing to the roots of his wings at that. It would be nice, after all. But he’d scarcely dared hope, since his beloved took him to _Opus Angelorum_ and did nothing but _talk_.

“Thank you,” he said, instead. “I am glad you’re here.”

“Oh, believe me, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without me.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Thank you for agreeing to talk to me,” Balthazar began, smoothly gliding to the chair he was offered. It was strange to be treated like an equal, and he felt a little unnerved, still.

“It’s why I rescued you, in a way,” Crowley replied. “An angel who could run?”

“Ah. Yes.” The angel smoothed over the shirt he’d picked out. Being given the free run of Crowley’s estate, he’d discovered he could pick his own wardrobe for once. As such, he’d opted for some elegant black, loose-fitting pants and a cream shirt cut low over the neck to accentuate his throat and chest. “I wondered when that would come up.”

“You have to admit it’s not… a frequent occurrence. In fact, I think you may be the only one I’ve ever heard of.”

“That’s because it’s few and far between, and because the public would turn against us if they realised… certain truths.”

“Like?”

Balthazar shrugged. “Most angels? Couldn’t break the programming. But that’s fine. In the majority of cases the people who take ownership are fine, and the angels enjoy pleasing their masters, and there’s a… synergy? A symbiosis, of sorts.”

Crowley nodded. Balthazar took it as a good sign for what he wanted to say later.

“Occasionally you get an owner who… really does not care about what they are doing. Or - worse - actively wishes to harm their angel. That’s when it’s abusive, and that’s when… some of us, anyway… we hit our limit.”

“And Alastair was abusive, from what I’ve seen.”

“Quite. He didn’t care if he hurt me or not. He didn’t care if he _killed_ me or not. And my self-preservation instinct outweighed any…” he waved at the collar. “...technical wizardry. He was going to be the death of me, one day, one way, or another.”

“Well you don’t need to worry about that, here,” Crowley insisted. “I can be your Master in name only, if it keeps you safe. You can have free rein in the house, and I can take you out - under false collar - whenever you need to. You don’t have to repay me because it’s not like you take up space, or food… and I worry Castiel is lonely when I’m not home…”

“So I’m allowed to keep him company?” Balthazar asked with a smirk.

Crowley flustered a little. “I - ah - yes. Yes… whatever… whatever makes you both happy.”

“Oh relax - Master - I’m not going to steal your beloved from you.” From the way the human shuffled, he could tell that had been at the back of his mind. Foolish humans and their social rules about pleasure.

“I… didn’t think you would.”

“In fact, I’m willing to bet you _brought_ me here because of him, didn’t you?”

Crowley nodded. “I… am not convinced by the common understanding of your species. I - now - own two angels. One who could run away, and one who couldn’t. The law says you’re beasts of burden. Worse: it say you can’t suffer pain, or have your own preferences. You bloody well _are_ plants in the eyes of the court.”

“Yes. That’s true.”

“But you… you _can_ feel pain. And you _do_ have preferences. And you _do_ have a choice, don’t you?”

“I think… you know the answer to those questions already. Look. You seem a nice fellow. _Too_ nice. So I’m going to be straight with you: angels like to serve.” 

The lawyer was about to argue, when Balthazar lifted his hand up and begged with his eyes to be allowed to continue. Of course Crowley agreed. 

“It’s in our nature. We’re submissive. We enjoy structure, order, command. We _like_ following tasks. It makes us feel… secure. And it gives us a sense of accomplishment, and pleasure to satisfy our Masters.”

Crowley nodded. He did not really understand, but he was trying to. “I see. So really, the whole ‘owned’ relationship - for the most part - is beneficial for you?”

Balthazar nodded. “And the restraints on our wings… it prevents us from doing more than simply flying. We are powerful, underneath. And if humanity knew the extent… well. It would be unpleasant.”

“Don’t you want… freedom?”

“That is an alien concept to most of our kind. If you offered it… we would simply seek to find people to please, anyway.”

“Right. But… you should have _rights_. You should be protected. You shouldn’t have to fear for your life - or fear you’re going to be… disfigured…”

“Then… yes. That _would_ be welcome. But I need you to understand that you’re not going to start a true revolution. The majority of my kind are happy as they are. They get to serve, they get to give and receive pleasure, and they get security.”

Crowley slumped back in his seat. “I see.”

There was silence as each considered the other. 

“He does love you, you know,” Balthazar offered, quietly. “He adores you in a way… in a way we normally only share with our mate. Your bond is deeper than either, because you have the potential for both.”

The human’s eyes narrowed. “Both… what?”

“Ownership, and equality. It’s what you both want.”

“I don’t want to--”

The angel pushed up and moved to the human, sliding his hands aside to sit in his lap. Arms wrapped around his shoulders, he pressed his face to Crowley’s. “Do you want to see him happy? Do you want him to make his own decisions? Do you want him to be the angel he most wants to be?”

“Yes!”

“Then, dear Master Crowley, you’re going to have to learn a few tricks. He’s taken his collar off for you, but perhaps - from time to time - you should remember to put it back on.”

“But--”

A finger to his lips. “Don’t argue. If you want him to have his own free will, you’re going to have to accept that one of the things he _wants_ is for you to take it away. From time to time. In a loving, caring manner.”

“I… I suppose you’re right.”

With a laugh, Balthazar kissed his cheek. “Lucky for you I have plenty of experience in this then?”

“I suppose so…”


	11. Chapter 11

“Master Crowley requires your presence,” Balthazar had said, and Castiel knew it was for something out of the ordinary because Balthazar rarely used his title when he was talking about their protector - unless he was joking, of course - and because normally Crowley would either call for him himself, or simply turn up to find him.

And then Balthazar had winked at him and he’d _known_ it was… important somehow.

So here he was at the entrance to their shared bedroom, nervous. He wasn’t sure why, but the other angel’s manner had set butterflies in the pit of his stomach. Castiel had shared this bed almost every night since they had come to their arrangement, but something made him hesitate instead of entering.

Castiel… knocked.

There was a pause - enough to set him fretting in case Crowley wasn’t there, or didn’t hear, or didn’t want him to knock or even come - but then his mate’s voice called out.

“Castiel: enter.”

The angel opened the door quietly and was surprised to see Crowley was wearing the same black suit, shirt and red tie he had when they’d briefly visited the angel club. He was standing beside the bed and - for all he could sense the slight nervousness in him (the elevated heart rate, the heat in his hands, the dilation of his pupils and the slightest parting of his lips) - Crowley seemed… _different_. 

“Come,” he said, and Castiel did.

Scarcely daring to hope, he stopped within grasp of his Master, but didn’t leap into his arms as he usually would. He could _sense_ that it wasn’t right, and that it wasn’t what Crowley wanted of him right now.

“My love?” he asked, faltering. He was torn between immediately throwing himself at his beloved’s feet, or… well. He wasn’t sure that wasn’t his own selfish need speaking, and he still wanted to _please_ him.

“I have been remiss,” Crowley told him. “I thought by giving you your freedom, that I was respecting you. I thought by refusing to take advantage of you, that I was treating you well.”

Castiel shuddered, trying to make himself look small. “Beloved, you _do_ treat me well, and I love you.”

“No, Cas. I should have accounted for the fact you might _want_ to be owned. **Kneel**.”

The word was scarcely finished before the angel was on his knees in one smooth, graceful motion. His head was bowed and his hands placed wrists-up on his knees. The tone… oh, the tone in his Master’s voice went _straight_ through him, to a place that could deny him nothing. Castiel _longed_ to serve.

“I love you,” Crowley told him, reaching over to tease his fingers through Castiel’s hair. It tugged at his scalp softly - caringly - but the angel could feel every. Single. Strand. He could feel them part like the tide around his Master’s digits, could feel it almost as intensely as if his Master had been stroking his wings. He’d wanted this - of course he had - but he’d convinced himself it wasn’t going to happen and that it was fine.

He’d been wrong.

Oh, he needed this. He needed this so much.

“I love you,” Crowley repeated, and his fingers curled, tightening, pulling his head back until Cas cried out in shock, his eyes on his Master’s before he could think to be demure. He was surprised to see the look of intense concentration and… want there. Uncertainty, too, but somehow that just made Castiel love him more. He wasn’t sure how to do this, or why, but he was determined to do it for the pair of them... and he was prepared to enjoy it, too. Cas was sure that Crowley wouldn’t initiate this if he’d been anything less than certain.

“I love you too,” Cas answered, his eyes on Crowley’s, making sure he could read the happiness and willingness there. “Thank you, Master.”

“Get your collar.”

The hand left his hair - and the little sting of pain was gone. Cas wanted to cry out in protest; he needed _more_ , not less. But he had an order to follow, and an order meant there was structure to his life. There was a goal, even if it was only short-term. It was something he could _do_. He dropped forwards onto his hands and crawled around to his side of the bed. Crowley always kept his collar in the little drawer when he removed it, and Cas liked knowing where it was at all times. He knelt up and reached in - oh did it feel _heavy_ , now - and he held it loosely between his teeth. He had to concentrate not to let his tongue touch it and make it damp as he crawled back to kneel before his Master’s feet again. He knelt up, hands behind his back, and offered the collar to Crowley.

Crowley held his hand out and Cas dropped it into his palm, immediately offering his throat with eyes averted respectfully. There was a whisper of thumb to cheekbone first, but then the metal was snapped into place around his throat. It was the same collar he had always worn (when Crowley hadn’t cajoled him into removing it), but now it was as if every place it touched became hyper-sensitive. Like every swallow of saliva, or breath of air, or twist of head made him _aware_ of his own body. The click of key in lock felt like it was pushing into his heart instead, and Castiel couldn’t hold back the little trill of excitement. His eyes went wide when he realised he’d vocalised, and he stared up.

“It’s okay, my angel,” Crowley reassured him, thumb-pad pressed into the crease to the left of his eye. “You don’t need to be quiet. I like to hear you happy.”

“Yes, Master.” He relaxed a little, but he couldn’t relax all the way. It was like there was a sudden knot of tension in his chest that wound tighter with every moment, and Crowley wasn’t even _doing_ anything. But it was that _potential_ that set him on edge. 

“I might not be great at this, to begin with, but it’s something we’re going to learn together. So, Castiel…” And out of almost-nowhere Crowley snapped a chain to his collar again, and now Cas could see it was a fine silver-link coil of about two feet which then snapped onto a bracelet on his lover’s wrist that was a perfect - miniature - replica of his collar. Bound together. Cas cried out in pleased surprise, then Crowley’s hand on his chain by his throat had him struggling to his feet - over-balanced - and, before he found his center of gravity, warm lips pressed against his own. His hands were up - from instinct - but they hovered, unwilling to touch. Cas simply had no choice but to _melt_ under the onslaught, to open his mouth and let his lover’s tongue in. Crowley licked into his mouth like he owned it (and he did), the kiss a warm, soft caress. It sent heat flaring through his cheeks, it made his fingers itch to _touch_. He didn’t even realised they’d burrowed into the fabric of Crowley’s shirt until the kiss abruptly stopped, and he was pulled forcibly back.

“I said I wanted to ‘hear’ you, I didn’t give you permission to ‘touch’.”

Castiel swallowed past the lump that was suddenly in his throat. “I am sorry, Master.” 

To stop any further faux pas, he put his hands behind his back and crossed his wrists. His fingers clenched and then slackened, then clenched once more.

“I’ll forgive you, but any further slips and I’ll have to restrain you.”

Cas’ knees nearly buckled, and he whimpered. God, did he want that.

Crowley laughed. “That was cruel. I know you want that, but you also want to please me, don’t you? Well. Why don’t you get both…” He pulled on the chain, urging the angel back down to his knees. “Use your mouth well enough, and I’ll tie you up as tight as I possibly can…”

“Please,” Cas breathed, dropping to his knees and going to press his face against Crowley’s crotch, but stopping just at the last moment. He wasn’t supposed to touch, and here he was already misbehaving.

Master seemed to appreciate the attempt to behave, though, because there was a twinkle in his eyes when Cas looked up for permission. Next was a little jangle of the chain as Crowley jostled it, and then he nodded a yes.

Castiel closed his eyes and ran his cheek all over the front of his lover’s pants, purring deep in his throat as he felt the evidence of Crowley’s interest. He kept his hands behind his back and licked over the rough fabric, feeling his tongue protest and his mouth dry. Crowley liked that, though, because he hissed between his teeth. Next he tilted his head to one side and dragged his teeth around the bump where his lover’s cock was trapped in all those layers, holding on and then scraping up and down, up and down… the fabric had to chafe, of course, and the lack of his lips and tongue would be a torture all of their own.

“Jeez… Cas… don’t be a tease. Or I can make this _really_ hard on you.”

Cas didn’t think Crowley actually had it in him to punish him in a way he wouldn’t enjoy, but he didn’t want to chance it, or to see Crowley upset enough to do it. Instead he grabbed the zipper between his teeth and dragged it down, nuzzling his way through to his shorts and wriggling his tongue through the little slit in the fabric. It wasn’t all that delicate or dainty, but he didn’t need it to be. He needed to shove his tongue in and lick noisily and enthusiastically, all decorum out the window. 

Above him, Crowley’s breathing hitched and caught and he heard the jangling of the chain as he struggled to keep his hands to himself. Cas slurped noisily, working him out of his clothing enough to wrap his lips around the head of his cock and…

...just when he was about to swallow him down to the root, he was yanked rudely back and he nearly fell onto his ass. He squawked in surprise and protest, and frowned up at his Master.

“That’s enough, angel,” Crowley told him. His cheeks were red and he looked like he was struggling to contain himself. “Come on. I promised you this.”

Cas sighed, but nodded. It was hard to tear himself away from his Master’s lovely pink cock, but it was all for a good cause. He ran his tongue over his lips and rose as gracefully as he could.

“Strip,” Crowley told him. “Slowly. Make a show of it. Make me _want_ it.”

Castiel didn’t wear much, all in all. Less than Crowley did, for sure. But if that’s what he wanted…

“Yes, Master.” 

Nimble fingers pushed under his loose-fitting shirt, lifting it up just enough to give a flash of his stomach. He hooked his thumbs into the soft, silk pants and he shimmied them down with a wiggle of his hips. They fell to a pool at his feet, and when he bent down to lift them he turned in the process, flashing his ass. He heard a little snort at that, and it made him feel proud. He slipped off the house-shoes and put them both to one side. Still with his back to him, he tugged at the bottom of his shirt and looked back over his shoulder.

“Master?” he asked, eyes flickering to the chain hanging from his neck.

Crowley closed the distance between them, suddenly pressing tight against his back. Cas shuddered at the hot weight of him, and the hands that laid heavily on his waist. “Sometimes you’re going to have to be… a little more imaginative,” Crowley told him in a voice that came from somewhere unholy and full of sinful promise.

Cas was about to ask for clarification when he heard a metal _snick_ from somewhere down below. Crowley had a hand bundled up in his shirt - pulling it tight across the front of his chest - and suddenly there was a _ripping_ sound and the fabric split from waist to collar. He turned his head and was shocked to see the flash of a silver blade. He _had_ underestimated his Master. Oh, had he. Cas stared at it, admiring the arc of the blade in the full knowledge that he was _safe_. But now the shirt was gone, and Crowley was still holding him tightly.

Crowley didn’t speak. Not a word. There was no sound but the rough breathing by his ear. There was nothing but the breath that tickled his throat, and the hands that kept him still, and the chest that moved in and out against his back. Cas closed his eyes, sliding deeper and deeper into the moment; deeper and deeper into _him_. When the moment had stretched to fill all of his memory, when he was sure he was _here_ and _now_ and nowhere else…

“Kneel on the edge of the bed,” he said, “and show me your wings.”

The angel moved in a trance. There was no thought that he would do anything but obey. He pulled away from those hands and moved into place, kneeling with his legs spread and settling low between them. Once he was there, he reached inside himself and pulled his wings out. They were bound as they last had been, pulled away from his shoulders straight out from his spine, the two limbs knotted closely together. He’d been pleased with the work at the time, because it was more constricting than usual and because it meant he couldn’t bend or flex, couldn’t bring them in to cover himself at all. But now he longed to move them. To use them. Now he knew what it was like to feel _tied_.

Castiel placed his hands on his head. 

“Good,” Crowley told him, and the way his voice _growled_ sent a shiver up and down his spine. He held perfectly still as the chain was attached to the headboard, and then his Master was behind him. Cas couldn’t see what he was going to do, and that just made it worse. Better? Both. He held his breath as he waited, and when the first finger touched the back of his neck he _keened_. It was warm, and it was doing nothing other than _press_ , and Castiel was sure he had to thank Balthazar a million times or more if any of this was his doing.

That finger ran down until it brushed against the place where his wings sprouted from his shoulders, and Castiel wanted to _scream_. Touch me. Hold me. Hurt me. Fuck me. He wanted to beg, and he wanted to wail, and he wanted to _have_ , but instead all that came out was a broken noise of surrender. “... _please_.”

“I will,” Crowley promised.

Thank god he wasn’t going to make him wait forever. Cas was already on cloud nine, and no one had even touched his dick yet. He looked down at it forlornly. At least he knew his Master wouldn’t ignore it forever.

He was busy contemplating his own body and all the ways he wanted to use it - or be used - when a hand grabbed hold of his bound wings near the top. It was hard and sudden, and he was taken by surprise. It sent a hot little stab right down into his core, and he moaned, rocking his hips into a hand that wasn’t there. “Master, I--”

But there was that metallic sound again. Confused, Castiel turned his head and there was a brief moment of horror as he saw it bear down on his wings. Even though he trusted Crowley with his life, there was a flicker of-- but then it was pushed against his feathers, and the blade slid under the silk stays, and Crowley was _slicing them_ open. 

Cas didn’t understand. Why was he doing this? Why was he untying him again? Hadn’t they agreed? Wasn’t that what this was about? He’d made him get his collar, he’d made him kneel, but he still wanted to undo all the bonds that held him tight, kept him secure? 

The angel wanted to cry. With each slice that glanced past his feathers, with each little shred of binding that fell around him on the bedspread, his wings became looser, became freer. Out of perverse pride he held them stiffly and refused to bend them. He felt betrayed. How was this what he wanted? But… no. He choked down the feeling. He was his Master’s. He belonged to him. He was property. He was _owned_. He let the rage inside him crest and break, and when it left he knew that he truly surrendered. He knew he would do anything, take anything, so long as it made his Master smile. He slumped as the last shred of his ego fell with the silk in pieces around his knees.

Like this, Cas felt naked. Like this, he felt utterly open. Never since he had been an adult had his wings been bared except to have them instantly rebound. He could feel the power within them: power to do more than simply fly. It was their gift and their curse in one. It was why they had to be restrained it was why…

Kind fingers brushed through the taut expanse of feathers. Every little movement felt like a dagger in his back. Cas wished it felt good, but it didn’t. Not fully.

“Don’t you trust me?” his beloved asked, his voice careful but without reproach.

Cas could only nod. He did. But he still didn’t have to feel happy, did he? Or was his obedience needed in his heart and mind as well as body and actions? 

Lips kissed at his neck, and he heard the snick of the blade being put away. That was some small mercy, at least. He felt the bed dip as Crowley moved to one knee. His hands were on Cas’ wings, tugging them apart despite his reluctance to. He let them be splayed open, and he stayed perfectly still as Crowley pressed up against his back. He was crying, but he was damned if he’d make a sound.

“Trust me,” Crowley whispered, and Cas let himself be pushed face-first into the bed. His hands grasped at the sheets, and Crowley’s weight bore him down. His wings flustered between them, and Cas knew - **knew** \- that if he wanted to, he could fly. He could escape in the blink of an eye. He could shove Crowley bodily across the room and slam him into the wall with just a gesture of his wrist. His hands clutched tighter still. 

No. _No_. He felt the power swirling through him, from somewhere _else_ , from somewhere _deep_ , and he fought it back down inside. He was not going to hurt his love. He was not. He was better than that. Still, it swirled within him and made the room feel like it spun around his head. He wanted to beg him to make it stop. He wanted to beg him to take back control. His jaw ached from how tensely he bit down on his tongue.

“Do you trust me?” Crowley asked.

And Cas… nodded.

His beloved leaned sideways, and Cas was startled when all of a sudden his hand was dragged away from him and with a _snap_ it was clamped into a heavy metal cuff. Alarmed, he turned to stare. The cuff was fixed somewhere under the bed, and he had no slack to move his hand at all. “...love?”

“I told you,” Crowley said, dragging his other hand out and binding that one, too. Spreading his arms as wide as they would go. “We’re doing this properly. Like I should have done, all along.”

Shame at ever having doubted him made Cas’ face hot. Then the realisation that he was _caught_ hit, and he pulled to see how tight. Very. “ **Master**!”

Crowley pushed off from him and pulled at his feet. He moved them at once - shoulder-width apart - and was pleased to find them bound too. He was bent over the edge of the bed - his cock trapped below him - his wings still free but otherwise caught. He could move his head, so he peered over his shoulder to stare up at Crowley. His heart felt like it was going to swell past his chest in gratitude, and he was pleased to see that his beloved seemed to be enjoying this too. There was still a trace of uncertainty in the lines over his brow, but there was happiness, too. And happiness was like mana to an angel. He could _tell_ that Crowley liked to make him happy, just as he liked to please his Master. With a heady purr, he pushed up onto his tiptoes and thrust his ass up hopefully. He very much wanted to be fucked. And he very much wanted it _right damn now_.

Crowley laughed and swatted at his backside. “Not yet, my dove. Not yet.”

Cas pouted. “But I am ready for you.”

“ _I’m_ not ready for _you_.”

Cas whined in protest. Not fair. He was ready! And bent over. And at the perfect height for fucking. Why didn’t Crowley want to fuck him? Wasn’t it fun to do it? He wiggled his ass some more in case he could get him to change his mind, and was horrified when Crowley walked out of sight. “Sir!”

“Patience,” Crowley chided. There was another strange noise that Cas couldn’t pin down, and no matter how he craned his neck he couldn’t see. Couldn’t see until it was too late, and his beloved was back on top of him, straddling his hips and sitting down on his ass. _Almost_ right, but he could have been a few inches lower and further _in_ , he thought, petulantly.

Well. Until he felt the mess of chains that were slowly pooled out between his shoulderblades. But he was already bound? What did Crowley plan to do with those? Cas squinted, catching him from the corner of his eye.

“I’m trying,” Cas replied. And then he squirmed and sent the chains clanking over his back, snaking around cool against his skin. Another swat - to his thigh - and he stopped with an exaggerated sigh. 

“You really _are_ a brat when I untie you, aren’t you?”

“I did ask you not to.”

“So I’m just going to have to tie you up again.”

Oh. **Oh**. Well. Yes. That would work, he supposed. Cas’ mouth went dry. He’d only ever had silk and cotton on his wings. Did Crowley really mean to…? Feeling increasingly like he might die from this, he lifted a wing up hopefully; stretching the feathers out first and then tucking them in tight. He wasn’t sure how Crowley meant to do this - or even if it was possible - but he was more than willing to try. 

Cas bit down on his bottom lip as some of the larger links were threaded over his flight-feathers, then in places one link passed over two feathers held together, keeping his wing bent folded and stopping him from stretching it back out again. Then the slink of chain twisting back on itself when it reached the edge, one long winding river that covered the expanse of his spread. It was heavy, and it was clunky, and it was nothing like being tied up in fine fabrics. This was much more… brutal? Crude. Heavy. He knew he’d not be able to beat his wings hard against this for fear of damaging himself, and he knew that when he stood the weight of them would hold his shoulders back and down. He wished he could see, but the fingers and the metal between them were almost as good as seeing. Maybe even better. He moaned and thrust against the bed, trying to rut into the edge to relieve some of the tension. He felt as bad as he had when Crowley had been trying to get rid of him. No - worse. Worse because now there _was_ the possibility of fucking, and **Crowley wasn’t doing it**.

“Please!” he complained. “Please, Master… I need to feel you in me!”

“Do you?” Crowley asked, not relenting in his slow, careful application of chain to feather. With every link, Cas could feel the power in his wings being choked down. He could feel the _magic_ being put further out of reach. He could feel the control coming back. “Is that what you think this is about? Me fucking you? Is that all you think this is? I could bend you over at _any_ time and you’d be ready for me. I could snap my fingers and you’d present your ass to me and beg me to fuck it. I could grab the back of your neck, shove down your pants, and _push_ into you, and you’d _thank me_ for it.”

Cas _whined_. All this talk of fucking was making his poor prick hurt. Was making the _insides_ of him hurt. Was making him _burn_ with how much he needed to feel full again. “Yes! Yes I would. Please, Master. Please will you fuck me?”

The chains were in place, and Crowley ran his hands over Castiel’s wings. Clunk, clunk, clunk. Each bump, each jolt went straight into him. Cas felt like his Master was digging his thumbs into his glands. (Oh no, oh no, he thought, do not give him ideas…) 

“I will,” Crowley agreed, and Cas nearly screamed ‘Hallelujah’, “...but not yet…”

Cas grabbed a mouthful of the bedding and _screamed_.

This was Hell. This was Hell, and he was in it. He should never have wished for this. He should have been content with a kind, loving, caring Master. A Master who loved to be woken up to a mouth on his prick. A Master who held him still for kisses. A Master who made sure to please him as he fucked him slow and sure over every bit of the house they wanted. A Master who didn’t do… _this_.

Perhaps they were more right for each other than even Castiel had imagined.

“ _Please_ ,” he begged again, when Crowley climbed off and walked away. “No! No… Sir! Love! Please… please come back!”

“I’m going nowhere, angel,” Crowley reassured him. “But I still have something else I need to do to make this up to you.”

“You already did! You did! Please… please no more?”

Fingernails that scratched over the bare backs of his thighs. “Do you mean that?”

“...what?”

“Do you really, truly want me to stop?”

Cas froze. Did he? He shook from head to toe at the thought. Did he? Or did he want more?

Crowley did. Crowley was - somehow - enjoying himself. And Cas? Cas…

He shook his head, no. He didn’t want him to stop.

“Alright. I’m going to spank you, now. I’m going to spank you for every time you’ve been a bad angel. You understand? And then - then when I’m done - if you please me… I’ll ride your ass till neither of us can walk.”

Indignation made his tongue thick. He was not a _bad angel_. He was not! Crowley was wrong! He pulled at the cuffs in defiance, until he felt the first, sharp slap. Just bare-handed, but he could feel every bone in his fingers as they impacted with his ass. It smarted, and it made a sharp, _fleshy_ noise that rang out after the blow had ended.

“That,” Crowley told him, “was for refusing to leave me for Dean.”

That was unfair, Castiel wanted to argue. It was only because he was in _love_. Surely that was more important than being a good angel?

A second slap. “That,” his Master went on, “was for not telling me what you wanted.”

Again, not fair. His teeth ground together - _hard_ \- and he scrabbled at the floor with his feet.

“ _That_ ,” came a slap hard enough that it jolted him forward and _stung_ , “is for begging me to fuck you, instead of waiting for me to be ready.”

Yes. Yes. All of those charges were right. He was a bad angel. He was a terrible angel. And somehow - still - he had the best Master in the world.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Fingers through his wings, his hair. Soft touches as a hand rubbed his pink and throbbing ass. Wherever he’d learned that particular talent from, Cas wasn’t sure. But he was sure that he felt sorry. He felt sorry for being a disappointment… but also happy because _Crowley loved him_.

“You don’t need to be,” his Master said, soothing over the hurt. “It’s alright, my love. It’s alright, Cas. I love you. I love _you_.” 

And the adoration in his voice broke the angel all over again. Crowley didn’t need him to be perfect. Didn’t need him to be everything. He just needed him to be _him_. Little kisses over his sore ass. Kisses that trailed up his spine as fingers tickled over his sides and went up to wrap over his fists. His beloved lay over his back, nuzzling at the nape of his neck, and Cas knew he was completely, utterly safe. He knew Crowley loved him. He knew Crowley even loved _this_ side of him, the angel side. The side that needed to be tied down, the side that needed his hands to be rough in their love. He knew he could cry, and his Master would kiss the tears away.

“ _Please_ ,” he begged again. “Please.”

He didn’t say what, because he didn’t need to. Crowley nodded against him, and he felt him slip a hand between them. Cas shuddered as his Master pulled himself completely free of his pants. He pushed up on his toes to try and offer what little bit of dignity and control he still had, and he cried out in bliss as he felt the first short, sharp thrust into his ass. It was true, he never needed anything other than a look and he was ready, but right now he _needed_. He needed to feel his body open up to welcome his Master inside. He needed the burning hot feeling of Crowley’s cock sliding between his thighs and into him. The weight of him on his ass, keeping him in place as he fucked him tenderly. God, but he needed it.

“ _Thank you_ ,” he murmured, his hands flexing under the ones that laid atop his own. The cuffs held him in place, but it was all that did. Cas felt like he was floating on a cloud, like the metal-and-meat around him was just flickers of a warm breeze. The bed was gone, and so was he. “Thank you…”

Cas didn’t know if Crowley replied. He was lost to sound, and only feeling wound its way inside. Only lips that wrote _mine_ on his neck. Only thumbs that brushed _owned_ into his hands. Only thighs that pressed against his as the slow, heady thrusts made him call out with every push. He was hollowed out. He was purged and cleaned. He was _Crowley’s_.

“Come for me, angel. Come for me, my love.” Words that should have made sense and maybe once would have. Cas hummed softly, feeling the sudden shock of hands on his wings again. How were they everywhere at once? Or had he lost track of time? Were minutes blurring down, as those fingers scratched down his spine? Weren’t they still around his wrists? Around his ankles? How were they _there_ , too? How did they find those bright spots of pleasure between his feathers and milk them, as that weight inside him found something _else_? Magic and trickery. He called out in hoarse protest as everything went _white_ and then **blue**.

And Castiel remembered nothing more.

***

Balthazar had warned him this might happen, Crowley reassured himself as he gently removed the restraints from around his unconscious lover’s limbs. (Balthazar, oh, _Balthazar_ had turned out to be worth every penny.) 

“You might short him out. You know, blow a fuse?” the angel had said. And a big DO NOT OVER-SENSITIZE YOUR ANGEL sign from earlier in the manual flashed before Crowley’s eyes. “But it’s only temporary. You just have to take care of him after, and he’ll be just fine.”

“Take care of him?” Crowley had asked, not sure what kind of care an angel with a ‘blown fuse’ might need. And that was when Balthazar had gone to Crowley’s laptop and went on the internet and started Googling ‘sub-space’ and ‘sub drop’ and explaining in terms that apparently ‘even a human can comprehend.’

So, once he had removed the restraints, he had dragged Cas up further onto the bed and pulled him close, covering them both with the duvet. He had left the chains on the wings because he didn’t want Castiel to freak out upon wakening completely, but he had taken the collar off again.

He’d never seen his angel asleep before. Crowley knew this wasn’t truly sleep, per se, but it was the only time he ever had the opportunity to observe his beloved while the other was not fully conscious. He felt his face blush at the thought. His sleeping angel, so vulnerable like this, seemed even more beautiful to him than ever before. Crowley gently brushed the stray strands of Cas’ hair off his damp forehead with his fingers and trailed them lovingly over his features. Then, as he traced his fingers’ pathways with his lips, he felt the angel’s eyelids flutter open.

“My love?”

“Cas… Are you…?” He wasn’t quite sure what to say after that. Wordlessly, the angel clung to him, arms and legs wrapping around his body, head burrowing into the crook of Crowley’s neck. “Shhhhh, you’re all right. You were such a good boy, Cas. I love you so much.” Crowley placed small, chaste kisses on the crown of the angel’s head. “So good. So perfect. My angel.”

“Thank you, love,” Castiel whispered, his breath tickling the sensitive skin of Crowley’s earlobe. Crowley had just had probably one of the hottest orgasms of his life, and he was already feeling his prick growing interested again, just from those little touches. But that wasn’t what Cas needed right now, and Crowley had to get a grip.

“No, thank _you_. For trusting me enough to do that with me.”

Castiel purred. His lips planted lazy, open-mouth kisses along Crowley’s neck.

“You’re so amazing and I really don’t… I don’t deserve you, Cas.” 

He could see his priceless bird trying to test his wings and giving him a little sleepy, complacent smile when he noticed that the chain links were still in place over his flight feathers. Before the angel could put the wings away to some place where Crowley couldn’t reach them, he pulled Cas still closer and ran his fingers over the short feathers between his shoulderblades. He was so sensitive there. And Crowley loved the way it made his angel shiver from head to toe.

“My love, it is I who doesn’t deserve you,” Castiel responded, his kisses getting bolder and somehow yet more adoring.

“Perhaps, we’re both wrong? And we deserve each other?”

“I like that.” 

Crowley could feel both their hearts beating as one, as he continued to do what Balthazar told him would help and stroke his hands soothingly all along the flanks of his lover’s body. Castiel seemed drunk. His eyes refused to focus, and the grin on his face would seem _stupid_ if wasn’t at the same time so radiant. This was one blissed out angel, if he’d ever seen one. Hell, this was the most blissed out he’d seen _anyone_ in a heck of a long time.

“Don’t ever leave me, Cas,” Crowley whispered against the angel’s mouth before he even knew that he was saying it.

“As if I ever would,” his beloved responded, sealing his promise with a kiss so full of sweetness and longing as to almost make Crowley weep tears of joy.


	12. Chapter 12

His Master, his beloved did not leave his side for the rest of the night. Castiel did not remember such a feeling of contentment since he had been just a little fledgling, playing with his brood-mates and discovering singing for the first time. His sister Anna, for one, he could listen to her sing for hours, she never seemed to tire out. In that sound was joy, and perfection, and the answer to so many of life’s mysteries.

Somehow. It spoke of a time long before. Before Lucifer had done his Deed. Before the Angels had been enslaved by humans.

He knew. He had known the truth when his Master had untied his wings the previous night. With that power, came the Knowledge. He lay awake all night, his head on his Master’s chest, listening to the rhythmic sounds of his soft snoring, and he Remembered. 

He was glad Crowley had left the chains on. He didn’t trust himself without them.

Crowley had promised to rebind him the next day after he had gotten back from work, just before he fell asleep. He promised him many things. He promised that they’d do _that_ again. And that they’d never be parted. And that he’d never love anyone, human or angel, the way that he loved Castiel. And Castiel had believed him and then lay there and wept quietly because he was afraid, so afraid that something might happen to his beloved if someone, anyone else, would learn of any of these secret promises.

And now it was morning, his beloved was off early to the office to attend a partner meeting, and Castiel was still wandering the hallways in a daze, his skin tingling with the afterglow of the night before.

“Hello, bedhead!” Balthazar greeted him from the kitchen. Cas never did figure out why his old friend liked to spend so much time there since he required no actual sustenance (delicious French wine be damned). He beamed quietly at the older angel and shuffled his feet. “Oh haw haw, _someone_ got properly laid last night! You’re welcome, by the way.”

Cas didn’t remember how he got over to the kitchen counter (his wings still bore the chains so he couldn’t have flown), and then he wrapped himself about his friend’s neck like a particularly heavy but amiable python.

“Oh, Balthazar…” was all he mustered and started to cover the other angel’s face in kisses that were more like baby bird pecks than anything remotely amorous. 

“All right, okay, get off…. Cas! Stop! Good lord, you’re smothering me!” Balthazar extricated himself from the ebullient display of affection and went back to the counter, where Cas noticed he was nursing something that looked suspiciously like champagne. “What?” the angel shot at him, accusingly. “I’m celebrating!” 

“A job well done?”

“ _I’d_ say!” Balthazar grinned and saluted Castiel with his champagne flute. “And _how_! You’re positively glowing this morning, darling.”

“I’m so lucky that our Master loves me so much,” Cas muttered, still in a semi-daze.

“Yes, it’s all rather maudlin, isn’t it?”

“He was so good to me. His hands… Oh… I still have the chains on my wings,” he perked up to announce.

“Cassie, that’s what we call ‘TMI’ in angel sex camp.”

“You’re the one who taught him!”

“It’s different when it’s in the realm of the theoretical!” Balthazar took a militant gulp from his glass.

“It felt so good,” Castiel went on, undeterred. “It still does. My _God_ , I had no idea he could slap so hard. My knees buckle just thinking about it.”

“Yes, yes, Mazel Tov!” Balthazar refilled his glass.

“I blacked out…”

“Mmmmhmmm… I thought you might.”

“I love him so much.”

“Cassie, I _am_ actually capable of hitting you. _Not in a fun way._ ”

Castiel wrinkled his nose in indignation. It wasn’t fair of Balthazar to wind him up like that only to feign disinterest. How was Cas supposed to _not_ talk about it?

“This is all your fault! You should not object to me saying any of this.”

“You might have noticed, I do many things I shouldn’t.” Balthazar winked at him. “Champagne?” He suddenly offered.

Castiel stared at the flute extended towards him and tried to think of reasons not to take it. Perhaps, if his Master found out he would be displeased. And need to punish him again. Castiel reached for the glass with a private smile.

***

“Crowley, man, you’re gonna have to be careful,” Dean said, gesturing with his beer. Crowley kept them in solely to entertain, he much preferred a stronger poison when he wanted to partake.

“I know. I know that. But there’s nothing illegal about polite protest and lobbying. And without it, nothing will get done.”

“Dude, I don’t even think you _can_ change things. Just because you have two defective birds doesn’t mean that they’re all - hey you know what I meant…”

Crowley did know what Dean meant. He meant to say he had two broken specimens: one who ran away, and one who refused to. They were hardly typical of the species, were they? But here was his friend - his bestie - and even he just thought they were the exception that proved the rule; oddities, not exemplars. “Yes, I know what you meant. But I think you’re wrong. I think, from my experience, that they are on the whole empathic and submissive, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have _preferences_. I think instead most don’t voice them, or don’t _need_ to voice them, because for the most part their living arrangements suit them.”

“So why are you rocking the boat, if they’re happy and people are happy?”

“Because I said ‘for the most part’. If they like to serve, and like to make people happy, then it’s mutually beneficial. But if the person who owns them wants to do them harm--”

“Or… you know. _Not_.”

Crowley actually felt a little embarrassed at that, and cleared his throat. True he still didn’t have the same instinct for it that other Masters seemed to, but he’d enjoyed the way Castiel had been - he’d enjoyed the sheer heat and electricity that had sparked between them, and, even more than that, the way Castiel had been floating on cloud nine afterwards, the slack bliss that seemed to glow from inside of him, the way he’d beamed up at Crowley as if he was the only thing in the world. He had to stop remembering that in public, or it was going to get embarrassing (because every time he had a flash of that memory, it sent a sharp stab of need right through him).

“Yes. Or… not.”

Dean picked up on that, damn him, and he whistled in appreciation. “Okay. Well, I’mma file that under ‘don’t need to know’, but - uh - good for you, I guess?”

Crowley was not blushing.

“So yes. They can feel pain, they _can_ suffer through things they’d rather not, and they _are_ capable of discussing their desires, their hopes and dreams. Really, this is no better than the old days of slave trade, except now the damn things are mostly willing, and that’s going to complicate matters.”

“Yeah. I mean. How the hell do you free th-- uh-- _angels_ who don’t want it? You can’t just, you know, say ‘well only the ones who don’t want owning’, because laws don’t work like that. And you can’t go around giving them the vote and shit because they’ll just vote what their owners want, and then the rich will get even _more_ power - no offence…”

“No… none taken. And you make a good point. If they are owned, then they shouldn’t vote.” Much as that sort of… stung, somehow. He spent so much time in Castiel’s - and now Balthazar’s - company that he couldn’t think of them as any less ‘human’ than the beer-swigging detective. “But I _do_ think they need some basic hu-- er, angel-rights.”

Dean shook his head, but he was listening.

“They shouldn’t be mutilated. At least, not unless they actually _do_ want it, but I don’t know how you’d prove that, so maybe it just needs outlawing. Like - some list of practices that you can’t do. Nothing fatal, nothing damaging, and nothing too hurtful.”

“...you can damage them?”

Crowley nodded sadly. “Take Balthazar. You know they need their wings binding? Well. Turns out they don’t. Not if you… remove most of the important feathers.”

Even Dean winced. “Oh. Okay. Wow. Douche thing right there.”

“Isn’t it just? They enjoy the feeling of constriction, of being under proper control. So some Masters deny them that, and just… clip them. Same end result, but not mutually beneficial.”

“Yeah. I can see why some shit might need banning. But maybe you should go easy on the other thing. You know. If you start sparking off a debate about if it’s right to own them at all…”

“I know... I know. I won’t be popular. People don’t like to be told they’re immoral, and worse still it’s a multi-million dollar industry. You can’t just fly into the face of something like that.”

“So… you’re gonna be careful?”

“As careful as I can be,” he agreed. “But I’m not going to sit by and watch _that_ happen again. I can’t. It’s against my conscience, and it’s… it’s the right thing to do.”

“He really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Yes he did.”


	13. Chapter 13

Castiel, it turned out, enjoyed greenery. He’d confessed as much one day when Crowley had come home and asked him what he’d done. Crowley had a rather nicely kept but not expansive garden surrounding the house, and he’d given the angel free roam and rein of it. Before long it was blooming and flourishing under his care. Crowley was happy, because it gave his angel something of his own to do.

It also meant he had an excuse to walk him through public parks. He liked to spend most of his time with his beloved, and parks were a peaceful place to do it. They couldn’t quite hold hands, but the fine chain that trailed from Cas’ collar to his bracelet was close enough. To outsiders he was sure it said ‘angel on a leash’. To him, it said ‘this is our secret promise, to be bound together’. In his other hand he had a latte. He’d offered Cas one in case he wanted to indulge (as Balthazar had somehow made the angel partial to the odd beverage), but Cas had declined.

“When will your current agreement be finalized, do you think?” Cas asked as they passed the small lake. 

“A week, tops. We’re almost there, but the other side is dragging it out for the sake of show and justifying their existence. Billable hours and all that. Eventually their clients will realize and the agreement will be executed.”

“You will get the deal you want, I am sure. You always do, Master.”

Crowley smiled and pecked the angel on the cheek. He consented to the title in public, and sometimes in private, but he also knew the hidden message to that word, too. “Yes. I always do.”

They were almost at the park’s entrance and heading back to the car when there was a ruckus somewhere off to the left. Crowley put his hand on his angel’s back, just as Castiel clutched at his elbow in worry.

“I suppose we better see what’s going on,” he said, trying not to let the worry show. Whatever it was, it sounded… nasty.

When they rounded the bend on the path, Crowley felt his blood run cold in his veins. On the ground, curled up into a fetal ball, was an angel. It was hard to work out for certain because he had his knees drawn up to his chest, and his arms protecting his head, but he looked _tall_ , with strong, muscular shoulders and a rugged, bearded jaw. He was gorgeous… and he was being beaten half to death.

As the angel tried to weather the blows that rained down on him, three boys - they had to be no older than fifteen at most - laughed, spat, and kicked at him. One in particular kept aiming for where his kidneys were (or would be?), or where his wings would appear. They laughed and egged one another on, and Crowley’s heart sank to see such brutality.

“Hey! Hey… stop that! Leave him alone!”

Crowley felt his voice waver as he tried to intercede, storming up with a sudden bravery that was paper-thin at best, but fuelled with righteous indignation. He was not a fighter, but anger and pity moved him on, made his hands shake and a cold sweat cover him from head to toe.

“Fuck off, Gramps,” one of them said.

“Master…” Cas was fretting. 

Crowley unhooked the chain from his wrist, and he put a hand on one of the youth’s shoulders, trying to pull him back enough that he could get between the boys and the fallen angel. 

“Come on, what has he done to you?”

“Fucking angel scum!”

The ringleader brought his foot back, and Crowley could see he aimed to kick straight at the poor angel’s face. Crowley shoved one boy back, and launched himself in the way. The youth’s foot hit his shinbone and it fucking _hurt_. He staggered, dropping his latte and splashing them both in the process, and glared up at the boy. “Stop it. Stop it _right now_.”

Crowley was dimly aware of a low, keening, panicked sound and when he looked up he could see his angel was watching with acute distress. Of a sudden, unbidden, his wings were out and straining at the silk stays that laced him into submission. His hands were balled into fists and there was that blue flicker again, that alien, beautiful light that showed when he was about to lose control of himself - one way or another. Oh. Oh _no_. Cas was about to do something dumb on his behalf. Cas was burning to protect him, and Crowley _knew_ that the minute he lifted a finger against another human, all would result in catastrophe.

“Cas, no!” he said, dropping down to shield the angel with his own body, and pleading with his beloved to stop.

“ _My love_...”

But then there were more people coming, and screaming, and then Crowley realized one of the kids was on the floor (had he thrown him there?), apparently unconscious, and people were manhandling him and the angel and…

“Cas, _run_!” he yelled.

The angel, his wings fluttering in outrage, stared at him. Crowley pleaded with his eyes as someone snapped cuffs on his wrists, and when he turned back again his angel was gone.

***

Balthazar found Cas curled up in ball that was cocooned in a pile of blankets in the middle of their Master’s bed (which he had not yet brought himself to think of as _their_ bed, no matter how often Mr. Crowley referred to it as such). His wings were hidden, but Balthazar could feel that had they been out, then they would’ve been wrapped around him as well, to the extent the restraints allowed them to.

“Cassie, my dove, what’s all this about?”

He’d heard the younger angel come home first or, rather, storm into the house; no, to practically tear through it like some kind of a tornado, knocking things over in his wake, things that the Master would probably not be very happy about being broken. Did something happen between them? And where was Crowley? They had left the house together, surely Cas would never have simply run off like this on his own (he wasn’t exactly cut from the same cloth as Balthazar).

“Cas?” he tried to coax his friend out from underneath the pile of excessive blanketing. To no avail. “Darling, you’re acting the hatchling. Come out of there and tell old Balthazar what on earth has put you into this dreadful _state_.”

The pile stirred, and eventually two planet-blue eyes popped out and blinked dolefully up at Castiel’s old mentor. Balthazar couldn’t tell if Cas had been crying, but he was definitely in a deplorable combination of terror and pain.

“Something terrible’s happened to my love,” he finally whispered. “And I… wanted to protect him… but I couldn’t… I could feel it, the power, but not…” He hiccupped a bit, and burrowed back into the sheets.

“What? Cas?” Balthazar forced the covers off him. “What terrible thing happened?” He pulled the younger angel out from under the duvet and into his arms. He could feel Castiel beginning to shake, as if some force trapped inside him was itching to get out. Balthazar quickly smoothed his hand down his friend’s spine, pressing along the line where his wings would have been joined, petting him like a giant cat.

“There was an angel being beaten… very badly,” Cas muttered into Balthazar’s chest. “Our Master couldn’t stand idly by and watch him get hurt, so… he intervened. Someone might have gotten injured. I’m not sure. They were taking him away in handcuffs.”

“Who? Crowley?”

Cas only shivered a bit in response.

Balthazar narrowed his eyes and felt his feathers prick up. This was bad. This was the opposite of good.

“Are you telling me they arrested Crowley? For defending another angel?”

“I didn’t stay long enough to find out what charges were levied against him,” Cas said in a broken voice. “He told me to run! So I ran. I had to do what he said, didn’t I?” It was then that the tears that had been choking him finally came out in two long streams, salty tracks dripping down his cheeks, dribbling off his chin. Balthazar kissed them away without thinking. He’d always held that innate need and desire to protect the fledglings of his brood, but especially Castiel - he always had too much heart.

“Cas, no, this wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done.” He held the younger angel tightly as sobs seemed to bubble up from him like little spurts of lava from a long-dormant volcano.

But assuaging Castiel’s guilt was the least of his worries.

“If he’s been taken in for harming a human to protect an angel, then, ducky, we’re totally screwed.” His fingers tightened around Cas, to make sure he was paying attention. “Cas? We have to leave. Do you hear me? We are not safe here anymore.”

Castiel lifted his wet face from Balthazar’s chest and wrinkled his nose in confused indignation.

“Leave? What are you saying? We can’t leave!”

“We can! Cas, come on. We must!”

Castiel shook his head and wiped desperately at his eyes, as if clearing his tears away would help him focus.

“Cas, what do you think will happen to us if he’s convicted? Best case scenario? We become property of the state and get passed down to some aging politico with an itch to scratch. Worst case… they kill us.” He was watching the younger angel to see if any of it was sinking in. “Cas… Surely, I don’t have to explain to you what happens to the angels of a man who dared to _defend an angel_!”

“I can’t…” Castiel’s throat felt dry. Too dry. But angels didn’t need water. He suddenly wished for a bottle of whatever his Master had in the study bar. “I won’t. I won’t leave him.”

“Cas, you bloody idiot, you’re going to get killed! Or worse!”

“It won’t matter,” Castiel shook his head vehemently. “If something happens to him… I can’t go on. I don’t _want_ to.”

Balthazar looked at his willful companion. He considered, for a moment, just carrying him off by force. He knew his own wings had been healed well enough by now. Well enough, in fact, for him to leave at any time he had wished. Their lovelorn owner hadn’t even thought to check on them, to see if they’d needed to be rebound. Funny how _love_ could completely rid you of any common sense. Easier to just listen to your programming and do what you’re told.

“Castiel,” he tried one last time, “I can tell how much you love him, believe me, I can. Just… he’s not worth dying for, is he? We’ll find you another nice human, if you like. Maybe somewhere in a village in Canada? Where they don’t _have_ angels? Only come away with me, I can’t stand the thought of you being put down like a dog just because you’re blinded by your own pheromones!”

He knew, before his little speech of supplication was over, that his words had no effect on the stubborn angel. If anything, with each word, Castiel’s jaw just set in harder, clenching, his nostrils flaring, his eyes narrowing. No. This wasn’t the face of a cooperative angel. And yet… Balthazar was loathe to lose him.

“I will never mate with another, you know this,” Castiel said, his voice devoid of any rancor. He was, after all, merely stating a fact. An axiom.

Balthazar hung his head, part in resignation and part in shame. Angels mated for life, and this one, with his stubborn streak, possibly for even longer than that.

“I’m _begging_ you, don’t do this,” the older angel whispered, cupping Castiel’s face with his long, elegant fingers.

“Save yourself,” Castiel finally looked up, his bright eyes meeting Balthazar’s world-weary gaze. “Do what you must. Go. Survive!”

He would. He would’ve have done so regardless ( _ergo_ the shame), but it was nice to have this additional blessing. Still, it hurt to leave his little turtledove behind.

“Cas…”

“Go.”

He kissed the younger angel, in a way that perhaps it never even occurred to their Master that they would ever kiss. Because, at the end of the day, humans were vain and obtuse, and angels were no more than dumb pets to them, unable to choose, incapable of betraying. Insensate to love. Well, Balthazar was capable of _all_ that and more.

“If you ever change your mind,” he straightened out, unfurling his glorious, replenished wings, the brown feathers lined with a golden and emerald gleam, “fly North, baby bird.” 

And in flash of blue, he was gone.

***

Crowley knew he was done for even before the door opened to let in the two men in dark navy suits; what he had _not_ been counting on is to have to live through his own eulogy before the casket had finally closed over his cold and still corpse.

He groaned.

“ _Why_? What are you two idiots doing here?”

“I’m your attorney,” Sam Winchester said, laying his briefcase on the long, spartan table in between the brothers and Crowley, straightening his tie, and sitting down with his fingers steepled in obvious frustration.

“Yeah, and I’m with him,” Dean grunted.

“I called _Cain_ ,” Crowley moaned in exasperation.

“Cain’s the one who sent me,” Sam hissed with mounting aggravation. “You think he’d want to dirty his hands personally? It’s bad enough to have one founding half of Crowley and Cain behind bars, you want both?”

Crowley bit his lip. Consequences to himself, he could accept; now, consequences to the business, that was not something he had foreseen. Consequences to the Winchesters, however, that was entirely out of the question.

“Sam,” he groaned again and let his head sink onto his palms. “Dean… Get the fuck out of here. It’s bad enough I’m in this mess - don’t let me drag you through the muck with me.”

“Crowley, man,” Dean interjected, “I’m not gonna lie to you. This is bad. Your rap sheet is starting to sound like an actual rapper’s at this point.”

“Aggravated assault?” Sam piped in.

“Defending an angel?” Dean continued.

“Aggravated assault while defending an angel?” Sam carried forth.

“Resisting arrest,” Dean added.

“I did not resist arrest!” This litany of his so-called misdeeds had all gone too far. “What else are they going to trump up?”

“Attempted robbery and grand larceny,” Sam replied, producing something out the briefcase that was indeed the size of a short novel, “vis-a-vis the actual angel.”

“That’s bloody bullshit! They can’t charge me with robbery - there was no threat of force! And I didn’t _want_ the bloody angel!”

“Crowley, you’re right, at least half of these charges are trumped up. But, and don’t bullshit me, did you punch some kid in the face while he was having a little rough fun with his angel?”

“Rough _fun_?” Crowley’s eyes opened so wide that you could actually see the entire expanse of white encircling them. “You weren’t there. They were beating him _to death_. Sam, imagine if someone had done that to your Gabe!”

“Whether or not I agree with that kind of treatment of your own property is irrelevant,” the young attorney responded, fixing his tie. “There were witnesses. Scores of people willing to testify that you allegedly assaulted a rightful owner and his friends.”

Crowley rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. Rightful owner, his arse. That punk ass kid was barely out of diapers. It was bad enough these New York yuppies bought their sprogs mobiles and bloody computer implants, now they also bought them anthropomorphized sex toys before they were even old enough to drive? Where was the God damn line?

“There _must_ be something in the _Legem Angelorum_ stating a minimum age of the owner!” he exploded, losing track of his current predicament for a moment.

“There isn’t,” Sam retorted. 

“Crowley, focus, man!” Dean was wringing his hands. “You could go to prison! For a long time!”

“And they don’t have angels in prison,” Sam added with a smirk that spoke of far-away thoughts that were better left unexplored.

“It’s not right,” Crowley protested. “At the very least, that law needs to be amended. Are we men, after all, or are we some kind of soulless demons?”

The Winchesters exchanged a look.

“Crowley, with all due respect,” Sam tried again, “You’re my boss, but you’re also my friend; and now you’ve also become my client. And as all three of these things, I _must_ advise you to _shut the shit up_! You’re not going to improve your chances in court if you keep spouting abolitionist propaganda like this!”

Crowley had gotten up and paced back and forth along the opposite side of the table from the two brothers. Yes, his eulogy - as delivered by Sam Winchester, he thought. 

**Here lies our friend Crowley: he was thick of head and fickle of heart, and he died the way he lived - stupidly.**

It was hopeless, all of this. He had overreacted, and it was much too late for a _mea culpa_. He had read the _Legem Angelorum_ himself, cover to cover, each paragraph and subparagraph. Assaulting an angel’s owner in interference of ‘disciplining’ alone carried a ten year sentence.

Ten years. At least. Without Cas.

And Cas too - he wasn’t immortal, or ageless. Or free. He would lose him. He would lose him forever and _that_ hurt like bloody Hell. It hurt to even contemplate it, made the air go clean out of the room.

“Sam, would you mind giving me a few moments alone with your brother?”

“Sure thing,” Sam got up and ran his hands through his luxurious hair nervously. “But we’re not done here.”

Crowley nodded at him and forced himself to take a seat across from Dean again. He could sense Dean’s leg tap-tap-tapping against the floor underneath the table, belying his calm exterior. Yes, Dean was the best man for this job. The best man he knew, really.

“Dean…” Crowley began uncertainly. “I know we don’t necessarily see eye to eye on this. But,” he reached inside his shirt and removed a key that was still hanging around his neck, “I can’t give this to anyone else.”

“Is that what I think it is?”

“I hid it during my pat down.”

“I don’t even wanna know where.”

“It’s not that stringent of a search at intake.”

“Uh-huh, not if _I_ do it,” Dean’s smile was more of a wince.

“You have to take care of my bird!” Crowley shoved the key into the Detective’s hand and clasped both of his palms around his fist. He didn’t say which _one_ since he suspected Balthazar was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. “Dean, I don’t have to tell you what they’ll do to him.”

“Crowley, dude, he didn’t want me in the first place…”

“Just… go to my home. Find him. _Talk_ to him. He’ll understand that you’re doing this for his sake, for _both_ our sakes. And take him the hell away from that place. You _take_ him, even against his will, do you understand?”

Dean lowered his eyes. The key weighed heavily in his hand and on his heart.

“Yeah,” he finally spoke, “Okay, man. I’ll do it. I’ll make sure he’s safe and no one else lays a hand on him.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

“And, just so you know, I may not understand this… bird-love of yours, but I want you to know that I’m not going to…. you know. Take advantage.” Dean blushed. Crowley had remembered the way the young Detective had eyed his angel the first time he had offered Castiel up. Well, he thought he had chosen well at the time. Dean was a good man. He would make Castiel happy. Eventually. 

He let go of Dean’s fist.

“Now go. Go get Cas. And send your brother back in. We have much more to discuss.”


	14. Chapter 14

The Detective craned his neck in every direction and rotated his shoulders as he got out of his car (a ‘67 Chevy Impala that was the source of much contention between him and his attorney friend who constantly offered to buy him an ‘upgrade’ despite Dean’s violent reactions to such suggestions). He wasn’t sure what to expect once he got inside Crowley’s house, but it couldn’t hurt to be careful. Normally, he wouldn’t be so concerned, since angels were programmed to obey all humans by default. But he knew Crowley’s birds were defective, the both of them, not even to mention that Dean had personally dragged one of them back to the precinct in a damn net about a month ago. He cracked his knuckles too, just in case, and put his hand on his holster.

The house seemed abandoned. There were signs of possible struggle in the foyer: several turned over chairs, a standing coat hanger that had been turned into a doormat, a broken vase. Crowley had not kept a butler (thank God, Dean would never have let him live that one down), but he couldn’t see a soul around the place. Slowly, Dean unbuttoned his holster and palmed his gun, moving through the house carefully.

“Cas!” he called out, making his voice sound more confident and commanding than he actually felt.

There was no one in the kitchen - the cook, Benny, had apparently disappeared, and the housekeeper (whose name Dean hadn’t remembered because he was usually too busy staring at her boobs and wondering why Crowley needed _those_ around to pay attention) was also nowhere to be found. It looked as if the crew had abandoned ship once their captain was gone.

“Castiel!” he tried again.

Angels didn’t run. Well, that long-necked, sassy-mouthed one did, Balty. But Cas wouldn’t. Would he? Crowley had seemed so certain in his affections, it was laughable. Falling for a bird like that - ha!

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel’s voice came from the top of the stairwell, causing Dean to swerve and point his gun at the angel.

“Cas…” Dean sounded relieved, and he quickly made a show of replacing his gun in the holster. “Hey, Cas.” The bird looked deplorable, and Dean couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It wasn’t as if angels could really turn wan and sickly (that was one of their selling points, after all), but something about the way Castiel held himself made Dean cringe in pity. It was as if the bird bled on the inside. “Crowley sent me to get you,” he finally spoke, swallowing the lump that seeing Cas has caused to form in his throat.

For a moment, Castiel’s eyes lit up.

“You’re going to take me to him?” he practically chirped, hopefully.

“Well… no.”

If Castiel’s face had been a flower, Dean would have sworn he watched it wilt and lose all of its petals in seconds.

“Oh.”

“Cas, I’m sorry. I wish I could. But he’s in jail right now.”

“I thought he might be,” the angel replied, sinking down and perching at the top of the stairs, with his shoulders hunched over in abject dejection.

“He sent me so that I can get you and take you away from here.” He watched for any reaction in the angel’s face; none came. “To my place,” Dean continued and paused again to give Castiel opportunity to react. Castiel didn’t. “He gave me this,” with a small sigh, Dean finally produced the key from his pocket and dangled it like a pendulum in front of the angel’s face.

Slowly, Castiel lifted his face and his eyes fixed on the key, and then they refocused on Dean, and the detective could swear he saw them harden.

“Look,” Dean continued rather abashedly, “I know this isn’t what you want, but Crowley thought it would be safer for you if he… you know. Transferred ownership to me. In case… well, if things go South for him.” The angel’s mouth was still set in that same line that Dean recalled with crystalline clarity from the last time they tried to do this.

It was ridiculous really, to be rejected by an angel, but it had stung Dean’s pride at the time. What did that even mean that a thing that shouldn’t be able to say ‘no’ said it to _you_? He wondered what his job-appointed shrink would have made of it (but of course he never brought it up in therapy). And now, the angel was blatantly rejecting him again, without even opening his mouth or blinking. Dean could read it plain as day in the angel’s features: rebellion.

“I’ll take care of you,” he attempted again, only to break out laughing because he remembered that those were the idiotic words meant to be spoken at the collaring. The bird cocked his head to the side in observance of such unexplainable hilarity. “Uh… sorry, Cas. It’s just… this whole thing. It wasn’t my idea. I promised Crowley though, okay? And I promised him I won’t lay a finger on you.”

“What if I wanted you to?” the bird suddenly asked, and Dean nearly fell down the stairs. Luckily, Castiel apparently had the reflexes of a ninja, because in a flash he’d been on his feet and with his fist pulling and holding Dean upright.

“Be careful, Detective Winchester.”

“What happened to ‘Dean’?”

“It seemed inappropriate, given you’re about to own me.”

It was Dean’s turn to cock his own head to the side. He had laughed at Crowley, called him crazy, maybe even envied his folly to some extent. But he did not expect… well…. _Castiel_. 

“You’re not like the other birds.”

“You do not know the other birds as well as you think you do, Detective.”

“Please. Just call me Dean. For fuck’s sakes, you’ve boned my brother, we can forgo the formalities.”

That made the angel grin in a somewhat spacey way.

“That is a pleasant memory,” Cas mused.

“You’re looney,” Dean stated.

“Not at all. Your brother is a very good lover.”

“Okay, no. Just stop.”

The angel looked down, in a blatantly fake show of obedience. It was strange, how Dean could just _tell_ now. The bird owed no allegiance to him. He was still Crowley’s, body and soul.

“Will you let me take that off you and do the whole _thing_?” Dean asked uncertainly. 

“Of course. If that is my love’s… my Master’s wish, I must obey.” He still kept his eyes demurely pointed towards the floor, but Dean read a sea of emotions in them.

“You do _get_ that we’re just doing this to keep you safe, right?” Dean really didn’t know why he bothered. The bird was broken and that was all there was to it. Crowley was insane and so was he for getting mixed up in this whole thing.

“Yes, Dean,” the angel replied, lifting his eyes. “I know that if you don’t take me, the state might have me put down or sold to another owner. Balthazar explained all that to me before he left.”

“Balty bolted, huh?”

Cas smiled again, thinking of the way his friend’s wings shone and shimmered with resplendent glory right before he disappeared. He moved closer to Dean and craned his neck backwards, exposing the lock to his collar.

The detective quickly unclicked and reclicked the metal lock and hung the key from his own neck. He cleared his throat with tentative awkwardness.

“Do I… uh… really have to say the words? I mean. There’s no one else here to witness this so…”

“You have to say it for _me_ ,” Castiel replied.

“Why for you?”

“You want me to trust and obey you, don’t you?”

“Um…” Actually, Dean hadn’t given it much thought. He just wanted the feathery fucker to come home with him without making a scene, so that he could go tell Crowley that his lover-bird (ugh _literally_ ) had been safe. But the trust and obey sounded nice too. He guessed? “I am your Master. You are mine. I will take care of you.” Dean spurted out quickly, before he or the bird could change their minds.

“Yes, Master,” Castiel intoned. And then added, “You have to kiss me.”

“Fuck. I remember!” Dean raked his own hair with his fingers. The truth was, Cas was far too attractive to be tolerable. And kissing him was completely out of the question because he was not going to steal his friend’s _whatever_ like that. But the bird stared at him intently, with those big, sad eyes, and _screw this_. Dean leaned in and pecked Cas on the lips with all the romance of a six-year old stealing a kiss at the playground. “There.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

“Shut up. I mean… you’re welcome. No, I mean shut up.” He didn’t know what the hell he meant. But he was kind of curious. “Do you still love Crowley?”

“Yes, of course. I will always love him, until the day I die.”

Dean wasn’t sure what to say to that. The stupid thing really needed protecting, especially if he was going to go around spouting shit like _that_. That kind of rhetoric would definitely not help Crowley’s defense.

“ _Why_?” Dean couldn’t hold back.

It looked, for a moment, as if Castiel was trying to think of an honest way to answer him, when suddenly, the angel rose up a bit on his tip toes, ran his fingers through the prematurely graying hair at Dean’s temples and whispered into his ear.

“It’s not your fault that your mother died, even if your father blamed you for it and took it out on you. You’re a good man, Dean Winchester.”

They were still standing at the top of the staircase, and for a second, Dean contemplated pushing the angel off and down the flight. What the hell did he think he was doing trying to make a grown-ass man cry? But instead, he pulled him into a hug, holding on to the damn bird as if his own life depended on it. Castiel stood there passively, arms slack at his sides, simply letting Dean hold on to him, and then he lifted his arms and wrapped them around the detective, returning his embrace.

He had felt so alone and so broken without his Master. And now this man with the hollow inside him was there and he was broken too. Maybe he and the detective could be slightly less broken together? At least this way he would be able to keep better track of what was happening to his beloved.

“Come on, Cas,” Dean let go of the angel and started down the stairs. “I’ll introduce you to my Baby.”

“You have a baby?”

“No. Baby’s my car.”

“You’re strange.”

“Is that any way to speak to your Master?”

“You’re strange, Sir.”

Dean laughed and gave the bird a companionable pat on the shoulder. Someone needed to give him a medal and soon. He considered submitting his own name for a nomination to be canonized, after this.

***

Dean’s apartment felt like a cage in comparison to Crowley’s mansion, that absolutely not-so-humble abode in which anyone would be liable to get lost the first few times around. It was big enough for the Detective, to be sure, but a cursory look around the living room and the bedroom did not leave a lot of options as to where he might put Cas. Briefly, Dean considered the closet, and then caught the bird glaring at him.

“Didn’t Crowley tell you it was rude to read other people’s minds?”

“No, Master.”

Dean sighed. 

“What am I supposed to do with you?” He stood in the middle of the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest and eyed Castiel from head to toe. “Why don’t you just sleep on the couch?” he motioned towards the sofa with his head, and Castiel’s eyes followed there unbidden.

“I don’t sleep, Master.”

“You can keep calling me Dean, you know. I told you, I only brought you here as a favor to Crowley. I have no desire in… _Mastering_ you.”

The bird blinked at him slowly in such an expressive way that Dean could practically hear his thoughts himself, and they went something like this: “Bitch, please, you know you want a piece of this.”

“Yes, Dean. Thank you, Dean.”

“Uh-huh.”

The detective swung open his refrigerator door and beheld the gaping maw of emptiness that greeted him. Other than a half-empty carton of eggs and some string cheese, the only other piece of produce there happened to be beer. Dean grabbed a bottle and shuffled towards his bedroom.

“Good night, Dean.”

“Good night, Cas.”

And so Castiel was left alone. He walked over to the sofa and sank cautiously onto the cushion, keeping his back straight and his hands placed atop his thighs, in the awaiting position. He waited.

After about fifteen minutes he heard soft snoring from the bedroom behind the wall. His new Master was asleep. And his old Master… Oh, his old Master was no where near him. And Castiel felt his lower lip quiver at the thought. Mechanically, he brought his hand up to his throat, encountering the cold metal of the collar laying flush against his skin. It suddenly felt tight around his neck, more of a noose than the safety net he had always considered it to be.

“My love,” he whispered into the night.

Crowley had promised never to give him away again. But now he had a new Master. Oh, _why_ did he imprint on his first human?

Castiel shook his head at his own doleful condition. As any good angel, he should seek to please his Master. And he knew what Dean wanted - you didn’t even have to be particularly empathic to read those facial expressions and body language. Of course, there were warring desires there, the desire to be a good friend battling with the desire to receive the kind of comfort Castiel had been trained to provide. It was his _job_ , wasn’t it, to placate all his Master’s desires. 

He should have just gone into the bedroom. No man could be angry to be woken up to the touch of Castiel’s expert mouth on his cock.

He raised his hand to his face and it came away wet. 

He missed Crowley.

He missed Balthazar.

And as handsome and kind as Dean Winchester was, as much as Castiel thought he deserved to be saved from the pit of his own self-loathing, this wasn’t at all where the angel wanted to be.

He sank deeper into the cushions and pulled his knees up to his chest. It was going to be a long night, but if he just closed his eyes, and concentrated on resurrecting his old Master’s hands and lips from the recesses of his memories, Cas hoped it might go by faster.

*** 

Angels didn’t sleep and didn’t eat, but apparently they rearranged all your furniture, and cleaned your bathroom, and then went online and purchased fucking _groceries_ with your own credit card because “You need to take better care of your health, Dean.”

“But… I didn’t ask you to do any of this…” Dean wasn’t even sure whether to feel peeved as fuck or to kiss the angel in gratitude. “Is that kale? Why would you buy kale???”

“I needed something to do while you were at work,” the angel protested. “You’re obviously woefully malnourished. And kale is very nutritious. Or so I read on the internet while you were away.”

“It’s rabbit food!” 

“We could get a rabbit,” Castiel observed. “I would be happy to feed the kale to it, plus it would keep me company while you’re away.”

Dean shook his head in disbelief. This creature was an actual child (except for all the decidedly adult parts that, ugh, _no_ , Dean was _not_ going to ogle them again). But so disgustingly adorable though! He was trying really hard not to picture him in bed with Crowley. Or with Sam. Oh, God, no. Yeah, one thought of _that_ and Dean’s boner was gone. He did not need any of Sammy’s sloppy seconds. Ack.

“Do you even know how to cook?” Dean asked, eyeing the angel askance.

“Do I look like a chef to you?”

“Don’t sass me, Mister.” Dean wagged his finger at Cas’ face without much conviction. The bird was a God-sent, and beggars really shouldn’t be choosers. Dean looked back inside the fridge and smiled. “This is good. Sammy’s coming over, so at least he’ll be able to make himself a sandwich.”

At the mention of Sam, the bird became all aflutter, causing Dean to scowl again.

“Don’t look so excited, angel. He’s not coming over here to bone you again.”

“Is that really all you think that I care about?” Castiel bristled at his reluctant owner. “I have much more important things on my mind than ‘getting boned’,” Cas made insubordinate air-quotes with his fingers as he spoke. “Such as, what are you doing to save my love from prison, for example?”

Dean felt embarrassed. “You’re a little shit, Cas!” he snapped, to cover up his fluster, and reached for another beer. “You obviously don’t understand how the system works. I can’t just waltz in there and spring Crowley from jail!”

“I’m sorry, Master,” Castiel’s face wilted again. Each time that happened, a little piece of Dean died. It felt like kicking a kitten. Or a baby bird. A feathery baby kitten. Anyways, it was wrong, and he hated doing it. Maybe Crowley was rubbing off on him after all, and that wasn’t a comforting thought at all, given his friend’s current predicament. “Please eat something besides beer,” the angel added, his eyes still averted, and Dean felt like he’d gotten sucker-punched in the gut again. 

He really did need to find some way to spring Crowley, and fast, because he didn’t know how much more of this angelic treatment he would be able to stomach.

“I will, Cas,” he reassured the angel and then silently jubilated as the intercom rang and he could buzz Sam in.

Dean barely unlocked the door when roughly six and a half feet of Moose barrelled through it, practically mauling his older sibling in the process and proceeded to flail his over-long arms in animated anxiety.

“I can’t handle that man! Unbelievable! What a fucking idiot! Dean, no, you don’t understand... Is that beer? Get me one... He’s impossible! He won’t listen to a word I’m saying - oh, thanks - he won’t do a single thing I advise! How am I supposed to actually counsel him if he refuses to be _counseled_!?” Sam took a long swing of the beer, and let out a protracted sigh, as if he was about to meditate. “Oh shit. Hey, Castiel.”

Dean had never seen Castiel’s wings out before but they were showing now, and they were _bristling_. If those things hadn’t been tightly tethered together, it might have actually looked rather horrifying and menacing. The detective hadn’t considered his new pet’s more avian features.

“This is awkward,” Sam whispered loud enough that it earned another bitch-face from Castiel.

“Crowley gave him to me to keep him safe.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Sam replied in the same loud whisper, as if he couldn’t bring himself to raise his voice in front of the angel.

“Cas, quit looking so pissed off. Sammy’s just trying to help your Daddy. Er… Crowley.”

“He called my Master a ‘fucking idiot’,” Castiel practically hissed. Dean could pretty hear the air-quotes in his voice, even if he hadn’t actually made them that time.

“Well, I’m your Master now, and I say - cool it, Hot Wings!” Dean put his hand on Castiel’s arm, somehow grounding him with his touch. The bird’s features relaxed and his wings shimmered away. Truth be told, Dean thought they had been pretty awesome, and he was a little sorry to see them go. But at least the bird was no longer looking like it was about to peck him and Sam to death. “Good,” he smoothed his hand along Castiel’s cool skin and let it drop. Sam cleared his throat rather obnoxiously.

“Is this… should we…?” the taller Winchester seemed at a loss.

“Cas is cool, we can talk in front on him,” Dean reassured his sibling.

“Dean, what happened to your house?” Sam asked, suddenly taking in the sights, which included everything being meticulously ordered and spruced up in a rather jaunty way.

“Nevermind that,” Dean waved him off. “What the deal with Crowley?”

Sam huffed, walked over to the sofa and sprawled on on it beneath Castiel’s somewhat withering gaze.

“What _isn’t_ the deal with Crowley?” Sam sipped his beer. “Where do I begin? Well…” He held out his hand and started counting by extending this thumb and fingers. “First, he refused to consider a plea bargain. I’m sure I could have gotten the prosecutor to drop at least half of those ridiculous charges, but _no_ , he has to be a stubborn ass. Second, I told him to make a statement denying he’s an abolitionist and reaffirming his desire to uphold the _Legem Angelorum_ , as an attorney. Obviously, the fool refused. Third, he also refused to issue an apology to the kid he mauled and his family. And fourth, oh, this is really good! Do you know what Cain is doing about all of this, Dean?”

Dean shook his head and shot a nervous look in Castiel’s direction. The angel was looking more and more visibly wound up. 

“Cas, sit down,” Dean pointed to the floor at his feet and the angel knelt in the indicated spot robotically.

“Cain is going to remove Crowley’s name from the company’s title and logo! Farewell, Crowley & Cain, LLP; hello, Cain & Partners, LLP!” Sam finished his story and threw his one free hand up while the other clutched his beer more tightly. “So, cheers to that!” he saluted his brother and took a long gulp.

“That’s… that’s terrible, Sammy.” Involuntarily, Dean’s hand twitched towards the angel, bracing against his shoulder. He wasn’t sure why, but he suddenly felt a lot more fear of the creature than the confused fog of lust he recalled from their initial meeting. “There has to be something we can do to help him. He’s going to lose everything, not to mention going to prison for who knows how long.”

“Fifteen years, if he refuses to let me defend him properly,” Sam groaned.

“Fifteen years!” Castiel exclaimed and immediately bit his tongue. Suddenly, the rest of his existence stretched out before his eyes in a series of endless and inadvertent abuses, the biggest of which was to not ever be allowed to see his love again. He felt the squeeze of Dean’s hand on his shoulder and that was the only thing that had prevented him from keening in abject misery.

“Christ,” Dean muttered into his bottle. “What a mess, Sammy.”

“Besides, he won’t let either one of us help him because, and I quote the moron, ‘I can’t allow you to ruin your careers over this,’ end quote.” Sam wrinkled his eyebrow with a petulant air of a younger child used to getting his way.

“Cas, go to my bedroom and close the door,” Dean said, quietly. The bird had shot him an accusatory look of the betrayed from his sapphire blue eyes. “Please,” Dean added. “I’ll come talk to you later, okay?” Castiel rose and headed to the next room. “And no eavesdropping!” Dean called out after him.

“Yes, Dean,” Cas said and closed the door with as little of a slam as he could manage. 

His hands were shaking. He raised them up to grip the back of his own neck where he could feel his hair standing on ends.

Fifteen years! It was all fine and good for them, wasn’t it? They might be allowed to visit his love in jail. They might be allowed to write to him. They were his Master’s _friends_. And what was he? In fifteen years, his Master might not even remember him. Might grow to hate him, to blame him for everything that had befallen him. No, no, Castiel couldn’t bare the thought of it. He shifted and realized his wings had been out again, out and straining proudly against his restraints. And for the first time in his life, he did not enjoy the feel of that restriction.


	15. Chapter 15

Crowley wasn’t sure what strings Dean had had to pull to keep him in the cells he had, but he was grateful. Even a contract attorney like himself was still a lawyer, and to people who hadn’t managed to stay on the right side of the bars the distinction would not save him from wrath. And _then_ there was the fact he would be classed as a sexual deviant for treating an angel as more important than a human by wading in where it didn’t concern him. On the ladder of crime, he was somewhere above people with unhealthy interests in children and below the ones with equally unsavory interests in animals.

Maybe it was simply for his own protection that he was in solitary confinement all along, as he waited to be taken to court and either remanded into custody or - hah - bailed. 

Prison did not become him. The solitude was crushing. He’d been mostly happy as he was, before all this started out. He’d gone to work and spoken to plenty of people there. He’d socialized from time to time. He’d held nice, friendly conversations with his various household staff… but he’d spent a hell of a lot of his time alone. Alone and reading a good book. Alone and drinking a nice bottle of wine, or nursing some finely-aged Craig. Alone watching documentaries or his guilty pleasures on the television. Alone.

Alone had never been a problem in the past, but now he found the separation from his angel to be all but unbearable. It wasn’t even sexual, really, because Crowley knew the graphic, smelly, nasty truth about law enforcement and as such he’d never been titillated by the cheesy prison-sex stories you could find if you wanted to. (And, he thought, now that he was bound for prison, he was worried to death about being made someone’s bitch. How ironic that he’d freed his own birds to do what they wanted, and would wind up in their very shoes if this all went wrong.)

It was the little things. It was the smell of Castiel’s hair. It was the feel of fingers brushing past him when they were close enough. It was those deep, deep, caring blue eyes. It was being able to talk to him about any and everything, and knowing the bird listened and cared. It was coaxing the shy responses from him. It was… it was just heartbreaking to be here, alone. And worse than that, he felt _terrible_ because he was worried for Castiel. He’d been alone before and he’d also made his own bed and refused to let Sam change the sheets, but Cas?

Cas was an unwitting, blameless victim of all this. And now he’d gone and made the angel bond with him, and then got himself removed from his life. He’d tugged his collar off, had him bound, unbound, and everything in between, and it _had_ to have had an effect on him, surely? Dean would take good care of him - of course - but he remembered the look of abject defiance and misery the last time they’d tried that. 

He was in the middle of yet another daydream about somehow standing up in court and proving his innocence and - all Miracle on 34th Street - convincing the State to repeal the _Legem Angelorum_ and all the little angels dancing in the streets and free love and… yeah, no. He was too realistic, too cynical to think it would work. He was going down because Big Business would never let him walk free. He couldn’t even stay in the fantasy long enough to open his mouth before the bench.

Anyway. The daydream guttered to nothing, and he was about to start writing his own version of the laws (from both sides, with some Law of Robotics thrown in for good measure to keep both parties safe) when there was the sound of someone with keys further along the corridor. He perked up, listening, and felt a wash of anxiety when the key was pushed into his door. It would either be good, or bad, and he wasn’t quite ready for bad.

“C’mon,” said the officer. “You’ve got a visitor.”

***

Crowley sat at the table, handcuffed to it. Oh, the indignity. At least they hadn’t shoved him behind glass with a crummy telephone, he thought. It was all the psychology of intimidation, of depersonalization. Homogenised outfits, chains, numbers… he was probably not strong enough to last in this kind of environment for long. He wished he was less stubborn. Maybe then he’d cut the deal that the woman before him was clearly here to present.

‘Meg Masters’, she had introduced herself as, this woman in the perfectly tailored suit that was a little too sharp in the shoulder area and too flared around her hips for his liking. He admired the craftsmanship, but not the execution.

“Mr. Crowley,” she drawled, leaning over the table. “I understand you have legal representation through your own firm, but as they are rapidly distancing themselves from you, I’m here to offer you an alternative.”

“I see.” Crowley was not stupid. He would listen to her offer, if for no other reason than to see what she wanted and to get some time out of his cell. And perhaps to ask her whether ‘Meg’ was short for ‘Megan’ or ‘Margaret.’

“Everything we discuss here is covered by attorney-client privilege,” she went on. “There’s no recording equipment. Nothing you say here could ever be used against you…” Or mine against me, was the hidden message in her eyes. Of course he saw it.

“That might be true, had you been my attorney and I your client. However, as things stand, neither is the case. Regardless, I’m touched by your offer, though I would like to know why you’re making it. Obviously I know what’s in it for me, but what’s in it for-- who did you say you worked for again?”

“My firm is Azazel and Sons. Family business. Lots of clients. And consider this a free consultation… after which you can choose to employ me permanently.”

My, she was cock-sure, wasn’t she? He decided to ignore the obvious offer for the moment. “And those clients may include - for example - Angelikos Incorporated?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss my clients, unless it is a matter of public record.”

“Which means ‘yes’. Don’t try the double-speak with me, it’s been my mother tongue since before you were born.”

“You need to stop this,” Meg said, still refusing to rise to the bait, though he knew what the answer was.

“Well I thought that much was clear by the part where I’m awaiting trial,” Crowley drawled. “Sort of wasn’t on my schedule for the month.”

“You need to let the angel thing go.”

“Why?” He was fed up of people telling him that. 

“Because you and I both know you won’t get anywhere with this. You might kick up a brief fuss, but they will tarnish your character so thoroughly that if you ever get out of here, you’ll have no career and no life. The media will hound you, and any goodwill you might hope to bring to your cause will backfire horribly.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No. It’s just advice.”

Sounded awfully like a threat to him. 

“ _Someone_ has to do something. It’s inhumane, the way we treat them. And no one will convince me otherwise.”

“Listen. Whether I believe you or not - and let’s say for the sake of it I do - how is this going to help? People who want to will take every opportunity to punish their angels more harshly. And what if the confidence in the stock goes down?”

“Then eventually the price will come down,” he insisted. If people lost faith in angels, then they would not part with as much lucre for them. 

“And then any ruffian with a twenty could buy one?”

Like leaving ownership to a plutocracy had been any better. Any dick with a credit card or a rich Daddy could own one right now. Crowley frowned, thinking it through.

"And so, in time, less money for Angelikos, less angel slaves."

“But before there’s less of them around, do you know what will happen? Before we get the population down to match the changed demand, there will be a temporary surfeit…”

Then… what? They’d be culled? Crowley hardly believed a company would waste so much excess stock like that, but it was true they might become more… rare… and he wasn’t sure what he felt about a decreased angel population. Surely that solved nothing. 

“Our treatment of sentient, caring beings like slaves is nothing short of a sin, Ms. Masters. They have wants and desires, they can feel pain and discomfort, and until they are treated as creatures of agency with legal protection, then I will argue with every last cent to my name.”

She leaned back, unphased by his little speech. Crowley felt… bothered. And angry. Self-righteously angry. He knew he was being an idiot, but he couldn’t stop himself either. He kept imagining Cas on the floor instead of - what had they called him? Ezekiel? - and the very thought made him want to punch walls, and he was not an especially violent man to begin with.

“Do you know why the angels are as they are?” she asked. “Do you know why we keep them under collars, with their wings bound?”

Crowley shook his head. He didn’t, and Castiel had been unable to help when he’d prodded either. His angel had shirked every conversation he’d tried, even more violently than he’d resisted his collar being removed, and Crowley had with great frustration given up. Balthazar had been no better, and there was no amount of researching the internet or even going back to the original proposition to congress when the laws were first drafted, nor did the historical news reports give him any insight into it. One day the angels had appeared. Shortly after that, they’d been enslaved. And that was all there was to it, there seemed to be no intervening steps, no debate, no discussion. And no objection from either angel or humankind.

“When they first appeared, no one knew what to expect. These pretty little things with wings and powers that seemed like magic. And at first… everyone got along. We found out they liked to obey orders, and they liked to help people, and it was all fine and dandy, you know?”

It sounded about right from what he knew of angels. Of course the empathic little beasts would want to make everyone happy. And of course human avarice and caprice would ruin what could have been a perfect symbiosis.

“Only… one of them didn’t like it. He said angels shouldn’t be meek and docile, shouldn’t _serve_. Lucifer was his name. He said angels should be in charge, because they were more powerful. And he was right. He staged a war, and… let me tell you, it was bloody.”

“Why isn’t it a matter of public record? Surely something like that would be hard to cover up?”

“Not when most of the people involved wound up dead, and the others wound up forming the Angelikos Incorporated you know and love today.”

“So they… killed him?”

She nodded. “And they found the only way to keep the angels in check was…” a finger to the throat that was meant to indicate both ‘collar’ and ‘slitting’ in one. He did not appreciate her joke. “And tying up those pretty little wings of theirs to bind their powers.”

“So why are you telling me?”

“Because… without the order, without the… constraints… you get the Lucifers. You get the wild cards. And you get war.”

“...And… we lose, I suppose.”

She nodded. “Took far too many people to take down one rogue angel. Imagine more… you know there’s more of them now. Not the same number as there are humans, of course, but with their power…”

“We get Planet of the Apes.”

“Whatever, it isn’t pretty.”

“But… why would we? If we set up a system that worked for both sides. If most of them want to serve, we could… we could work out some sort of consensual agreement with legal protection for both parties, and…”

“What about the people who already own them? And what if people found out what they were capable of? Do you think someone would let an angel in their house - their _bed_ \- if they thought they might be exploded with a touch?”

Crowley went pale.

“Oh yeah. They can do that. And worse. You really think that the common man or woman would like that? They’d demand cullings. It would be a bloodbath, one way or another. Either all the angels would find their throats slit, or we’d fight until there was only one race left.”

It would be humanity, Crowley knew. Angels were too caring - Lucifers aside - and they’d be slaughtered like babes in arms. Worse… some of them might even welcome it.

How fucked up was that?

“I… think we’re done, here,” he told Meg. 

She nodded. “You think about what I’m offering. Safety for you, and for your pet. And for all the angels.”

“...I’ll think about it.”

He was damned every which way.

***

By the time Dean finally said his good night to Sam, put the remnants of their beer into the recycling bin, and sauntered into the bedroom, he had almost forgotten that he had sent Castiel there. Castiel who had apparently made the bed, folded his laundry, and generally turned his ‘sleeping closet’ into something actually presentable, where you wouldn’t be ashamed to bring a date.

“Cas...uh…. what did you do, man?”

“My apologies, Dean. I am used to habitating in a place with slightly less entropy, all told.” The angel shrugged, decidedly unapologetically. “Or at least in a place where the socks do not reside on the floor in the corner,” he added, somewhat saucily.

“That’s the sock place,” Dean insisted, pointing to the corner which now was completely devoid of socks. “And you’re not my mother! And, anyways, where _did_ you put all my socks?” And how on Earth was he supposed to ever find anything ever again? His eyes scanned the transmutated room, finding no succor anywhere. Everything was so… _neat_.

“I put them in the drawer,” the angel indicated the dresser with his head. Sometimes Dean forgot he actually owned a dresser. The only thing he really remembered using it for was… _oh fuck_. 

“Which drawer?” he asked, unable to mask the panic.

“The second from the top. Don’t worry, Dean, I didn’t move your Asian ladyboy and tentacle porn collection,” Castiel reassured him. “Is that the kind of angel you would’ve preferred, Dean? I did not realize they made them with tentacles in Japan. Is that why you haven’t tried to copulate with me yet?”

“Oh my God, Cas, shut up!”

The angel tilted his head a few more times, without saying a word, but in his eyes was a sea of queries unanswered. He was waiting for his new Master to berate him, even to hit him, perhaps. He had been a very bad angel. He did things that his Master had not asked him to do, and more so, he’d _enjoyed_ doing it for the precise reason.

“I did organize all your porn alphabetically and chronologically though,” he finally added, convinced that Dean wasn’t going to react any further. “But left it in the top drawer for you, where it was.” Perhaps he’d hit him now? Any kind of physical contact was starting to sound better than no touching at all.

Dean sank down onto the bed next to the angel and closed his eyes with a sigh of heartfelt resignation.

“Thanks, Cas. You didn’t have to go to the trouble of doing all this.”

He wasn’t angry? Castiel was confused.

“It was no trouble, Dean. I enjoy doing things like this.”

“I’d imagine at Crowley’s place, there wasn’t much that needed to be alphabetized though, huh?”

“No,” Castiel admitted with a small smile, his eyes far away in the not-so-distant past. “I did a lot of gardening there. My Master had such lush grounds.”

“I’m sorry, Cas. I know how much this must suck for you.”

The angel looked down to see Dean staring up at him. His emerald eyes reflected sincerity and good will. He wasn’t going to hit him.

“There’s no one who can help him, is there, Dean?” the angel asked, almost timidly. He felt ashamed asking his new Master about his mate, but he had already broken so many angel protocols that each subsequent trespass felt easier. Dean shook his head and reached out to take Castiel’s hand in his. His touch was reassuring, and Cas squeezed back, willing himself to love this man the way he had loved Crowley before him.

_He is your Master; you are his; he will take care of you._

No, it was no use. He couldn’t erase what was so permanently imprinted in his heart, in the very fibre of his Grace.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Cas?”

“There’s no one who can help him _among men_...” the angel said, cautiously.

“Cas, what are you saying?”

“If you would unbind my wings… I could show you.”

Dean sat up, bringing his face level with that of the angel. His brows were furrowed and the set of his jaw did not speak of a particularly benevolent disposition.

“Cas, you know we could both get into a lot of trouble for doing what you’re suggesting,” the detective finally replied. Castiel narrowed his eyes; it wasn’t a ‘No.’

“I would never hurt you, Dean. Or anyone whom my love considers among his friends. But I need you to do this. For me. For Crowley. I can save him.” He spoke with such conviction that Dean was beginning to feel utterly outmanned. “I _will_ save him. Unbind me.”

“You want me to,” Dean swallowed, “release you?”

“I want you to give me back my _choice._ Let me show you who I truly am, Dean. I can’t do that until you’ve given me back all my powers.”

Dean shivered. Was it true? Could Crowley have been right all along? There was much more to these creatures than met the eye (and what did meet the eye was very delectable). Dean shuffled off the bed and reached for something in his night stand - an old, trusty switchblade he had kept there for emergencies.

“Okay, Cas. But if you do something stupid and anyone gets hurt, that’s gonna be on me, you understand?”

The angel nodded and Dean saw something flash behind the irises of his eyes, something of a preternatural blue shade.

“Alright, so… take out your wings, let’s see it.”

Castiel turned so that his back was towards the detective and produced his shiny, raven wings, with their intricately interwoven karada that laced in a tight criss-cross between the feathers, practically braiding them together.

This way, Dean could finally admire them up close - they were even prettier than they had appeared to him earlier in the room with Sam. Gently, he lay his hand over one wing, causing the angel to shiver in pleasure. His own hand felt as if a low electric current had run through it. Dean caressed the feathers once more, enjoying the way the angel seemed to melt and purr from the touch.

“They’re beautiful,” he admitted out loud. “Are you ready?”

Cas nodded, silently. He remembered the other time a human had cut his bindings off, how helpless he felt, how much that moment had become his ultimate surrender, and a visible shiver ran through his limbs. Every feather of his wings, every cell in his body screamed to be released so he could be with his beloved. 

He felt the first snap of the binding coming undone underneath the blade of Dean’s knife. The detective worked fast, but carefully, with great concentration. His hands felt deliberate but soft against Castiel’s quills, against the seemingly fragile bones of his wings. The bindings came away, loosened, fell to the bedroom floor... and the angel began to feel something hot uncoiling again inside him, the roiling of an unstoppable storm.

“All done,” Dean gasped and stepped back in awe, as Castiel unfurled his wings to their full span, drowning out all light in the room. “Jesus Fucking Christ…” Dean muttered and stumbled backwards until he fell onto the bed.

_Something_ was happening. Castiel had only felt the merest taste of that power when he had played with his Master before, but this, no nothing could have prepared him for _this_. It surged through him, some kind of unbridled energy, making each one of his tendons sing out. He was armed with the knowledge that a single powerful flap of his wings and he would be free, free of this place, free of his Master, free of humanity. It was exhilarating. It was terrifying. It was pure power.

He forced his focus back towards the bed where the man who had torn apart his shackles lay in a stunned silence. The angel reached towards the detective with a long, unfurled wing, and gently brushed his face with the tips of his feathers.

“Thank you, Dean. I will never forget this.”

“Nor I,” the man replied, breaking his stunned silence. Who could forget a sight like that? Dean felt lucky that he hadn’t been smited where he lay, because there was no doubt in his mind that the creature standing before him could do with with a flick of a finger.

The angel bent over the bed and gently brushed his lips against those of his last Master, his hand tangling in the chain around Dean’s neck. He pulled the key away and removed his own collar.

“I don’t think I should be wearing this anymore,” he intoned calmly, as if he was explaining the birds and the bees to a little boy.

Dean was rendered silent again; his lips were tingling.

“I have to go now,” the angel said. “Will you come with us?”

“I… what?” That last question had been unexpected.

“Once I have freed my Crowley from prison, we’re going to have to flee. Will you come with us?”

“I… I’ll think about it,” Dean mumbled, unable to take his eyes off the sight before him. Those giant, electric wings, moving in the confines of his bedroom.

“It may not be safe for you to say here,” Castiel pointed out. “I could protect you,” he added. “I could take care of you.”

The irony of the statement was not lost on Dean, nor, by the smug looks of it, on Castiel.

“You’ve spent your whole life taking care of others,” the angel went on. “Isn’t it time you let someone take care of you?”

The lump in Dean’s throat was threatening to cut off his air supply. There was something simultaneously innocently sweet yet dauntingly awe-inspiring in the angel’s words.

“You’re a keeper, Cas,” Dean finally found his voice, trying to sound firm. “I get now what Crowley sees in you. He slid down from the bed and walked over to his balcony, throwing the glass doors and the screen open. “Go get your man, angel. And drop me a line some time once you’re both safe.”

He felt the huge wings wrap softly around him, and Dean found himself pressed bodily to Castiel’s warm and practically glowing form. He radiated power, but also joy, and yes, love. And Dean didn’t want to live in a world where Castiel could belong to just anyone anymore.

It was dark and damp out, but Dean remained on the balcony long after the last flash of Castiel’s wings had disappeared in the sky.


	16. Chapter 16

The bed - which was generous to begin with, calling it that - felt like a dozen little vipers biting into his back and his sides. He had gotten soft, spoiled, too accustomed to the finer things… like the feel of a radiant angel, laying limp and spent in his arms. Crowley pulled at his covers, but they brought very little comfort. They chafed and generally gave off the sensation of crawling with bed bugs. (Thank God for small favors of lights out! He’d hate to proven correct in _that_ little supposition.)

He couldn’t take the deal. Could he? It would be simple. And then he could see Cas again, and they would be safe.

But, no, he wasn’t an idiot. He might have been besotted, but he hadn’t been born yesterday, and he couldn’t believe that woman just on her word. If their ultimate goal was to silence him, then the first thing they’d want to do would be to take Castiel from him. Maybe even keep him as collateral, so that Crowley would remain in their thrall.

He could never let that happen. No, Cas was safe where he had put him - with Dean. And with Crowley in prison.

Oh, this entire situation was simply too _infuriating_ to be endured. He’d never felt so helpless before, not even as a child.

Even all his turbulent thoughts aside, it seemed to be a particularly _noisy_ night. He was wondering what kind of a rager the guards were having upstairs. All he heard was sounds of… well, he had no idea of what, but it was _loud_. Furniture crashing? Things falling? Walls shaking? 

Huh. Perhaps it was more of an earthquake than a rager?

Crowley sat up on his shoddy cot and rubbed his eyes, chasing away the last hope of getting any sleep. The sounds were getting louder, and, even more strangely, somehow closer. He thought he heard someone scream, or rather, choke on a scream. Then silence, followed by a strange sound that was almost reminiscent of whistling, as if an errant breeze had been blowing through the corridors.

He held his breath, heart beating so hard that he could feel the blood pounding against his eardrums. It threatened to drown out all the other noise.

Someone was at the door. Some _one_ or some _thing_. He hadn’t heard any footsteps. He didn’t know what was happening. But he could sense that some serious shit was going down. Now. Outside his cell.

A blue light shone under his door and then he had to shield himself because some unseen force had torn the entire thing clean off the hinges and had thrown it against the opposite wall.

“Holy…” Crowley didn’t have time to even finish his expletive because, when the dust settled, among the rubble outside, he suddenly saw two giant black wings.

“My love!”

“ _Cas?!_ ”

And then the wings were gone and Crowley was being savagely kissed to death by his angel. Well, not actually to death, but even if he had been, what a way to go! He wrapped his arms around his beloved’s form, torn between the desire to press closer and to push away, the better to look at him. He wanted to drink strength and love from those lips but also to stare eternally into the ocean of Castiel’s eyes. He wanted _everything_ and anything short of that could never possibly be enough.

“Cas… my heart, my darling…” he mumbled, their mouths too frantic and seeking the other out blindly. “What are you doing here? Did you…? What did you do?”

“I… I guess I broke my programming,” the angel spoke with caution, looking into Crowley’s face to see whether his beloved would be angry to hear that. “I had to come for you. I couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing you for fifteen years!”

Crowley was speechless, letting his hands roam over Castiel’s face, shoulders, chest, as if still struggling to convince himself that he was real.

“You beautiful, stupid bird,” he whispered, pulling his angel closer, to kiss himself drunk again on those gorgeous, supple lips.

“Are you mad at me?” the angel asked, shyly, pressing in closer, nosing along Crowley’s neck and behind his ear.

“I’m madly in love with you,” the stunned man replied. “How did you get free?”

“I had Dean unbind me. He’s a good friend. We should take him with us.”

Crowley chuckled and kissed his angel’s lips again.

“Where, sweetheart? Where are we going?”

“North,” Cas replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “When Balthazar left, he told me to fly North.” Before Crowley could ask for more specifics, Cas perked up his ears at more noise outside the cell. “One moment, my love. I’ll just take care of these people and I’ll be right back.”

His wings were out again and he moved with the speed of lightning.

“Cas!” Crowley called out, as his angel disappeared beyond the door in a flash of blue. “Shit. Don’t kill anyone!” he called out again, in a vain hope of being heard. 

The sound of gunshots sent him to the floor, with nothing to cover his head but his own arms. It must have only lasted seconds, but for a person not accustomed to sounds of bullets ricocheting around him, it felt like half an eternity. Crowley only opened his eyes when he felt the brush of feathers enveloping him again.

“I’m sorry, my love. It’s over now. We should go, before more of them come.”

“Go… yes… quite,” Crowley muttered, reaching forward blindly and wrapping his arms around the angel’s neck. “Did you kill them?” he asked, looking up into the azure pools of Castiel’s bright eyes, afraid to hear the answer to his own question.

“Not all of them,” he replied. “I don’t enjoy killing, you know. I only wish to protect you.” Cas wrapped his arms around his beloved and pressed a soft kiss to his musty and unwashed hairline. “Come.”

Crowley wasn’t sure how they had gotten to the roof, but there they were, dangling over a literal and metaphorical precipice. He wasn’t afraid of heights, but still, there was only one reason they would have needed to climb to the roof, and it wasn’t necessarily one he was comfortable with.

“We should stop by the house first, to pick up some essentials.”

“Of course, my love.”

“And, Cas, I don’t know if you’ve thought this over. How will we even know where _there_ is when we get there? ‘North’ isn’t exactly precise GPS coordinates.”

“Easy. I’ll find Balthazar by angel radio.”

“What’s angel radio?”

“Something I had no idea existed until I flew off from Dean Winchester’s balcony. But it’s a very convenient way of communicating. Safer too.”

“So… about this _flying_....”

Castiel smiled and leaned closer again, lips brushing softly against Crowley’s, making the man completely helpless and devoid of all reason. He might have just jumped off the roof if Cas had asked him to. That’s how insane love can make you.

“I put myself in your hands plenty of times, my love. Now it’s your turn.”

“But Cas,” Crowley whined softly, “ _Flying_.”

“We’ll be there before you know it,” the angel stated with firm assurance.

Crowley locked eyes with his super-human lover. Yes. Love made you insane. Made you do some things that you would never think yourself capable of doing. And how was that any more or less scary than flying? 

He wrapped his arms around Castiel’s neck again and nodded.

***

Dean sat transfixed in front of his TV. He had long since set the volume to ‘mute’ since the imagery was convincing enough. The jailhouse where Crowley had been kept looked decimated. One angel, they said. Ha! It looked like someone had dropped a SWAT team or a small bomb on the place. Six men were dead and another dozen or so lay wounded in the aftermath in the nearby hospital. Some of them good cops, men that Dean had known, either by face or by reputation.

He didn’t even look at the caller ID when he picked up. He knew who it was by the psychosomatic pain in his ass.

“Yeah, Bobby.”

“Tell me you and your idjit brother had nothing to do with this massive _fuck_ -up!”

His lieutenant, Bobby Singer, was never one to mince words and deeds.

Dean sighed. “You mean the fuck-up all over the news?”

“Now, I know this Crowley was your friend, boy. So there’s no avoiding an inquiry.”

“Yeah, I know, Bobby.”

He could practically hear the future drinks Bobby planned to take in the immediate aftermath of the phonecall by the heavy breathing on the other line. Bobby had been like a father to him. And maybe he made this choice to let loose some fucking _monster_ onto the city, but that was a choice he’d made on his own. He wasn’t going to let anyone else take the fall for it, least of all Bobby.

“Dean, you better fucking testify that you had nothing to do with this! Do you understand me? I don’t care if you did, I don’t care if you didn’t, but you _tell them_ what I just said. I’m not having your badge over this!”

Perhaps Crowley’s bird had been right. It wasn’t safe for Dean to remain there. Maybe he should’ve given that more thought before he cut Castiel loose from those bindings, but he was apparently _stupid_ , and blinded by those teary sickeningly blue eyes that moved him in matters of conscience that he had no business having.

“Don’t worry, Bobby. I’ll do what needs to be done.”

“Don’t cock this up, Winchester!”

The line went dead but Dean could practically hear Bobby throwing the phone clean across the room.

‘What needs to be done’ he said. Dean smirked at the thought of it. Wasn’t that what he thought he was doing when he took that key from Crowley’s hand? Or when he put his knife to Castiel’s stays? That look of naked despondency in the angel’s eyes - how could he have done anything _but_ cut him loose? 

And neither was Castiel the monster - merely a man doing his best under impossible constraints. It was the world that was fucked up. Not them.

Dean took a deep breath and let his eyes travel over his freshly cleaned and meticulously organized apartment. It felt empty.

Days passed. It was chaos on the streets. Some angel owners have taken to returning their feathered property to Angelikos Incorporated as a precautionary measure. And those were the conscientious consumers, not used to the thought of causing willful property damage. There was talk of rounding the remaining angels into internment camps, until this whole thing settled down. Such talk was greeted by a surprising outcry from some owners, the contingent who would not see their beloved pets kenneled so. Factions were forming.

A war was coming.

And he was stuck right in the middle of it. Dean wondered what Crowley would think once he knew what his little selfless act of stubborn courage had wrought. _If_ he even knew.

Dean waited for word that Castiel promised him, word that would not come. It was, of course, possible that Crowley and his renegade bird had been caught and silenced. But surely he would have heard of it from his man on the inside.

Sam. Sam whom he watched denounce him on public television as an angel-lover and an abolitionist. Sam who delivered that press conference with his wife by his side and his own angel firmly leashed at his knees. Sam who was about to make partner at Cain & Partners, LLC.

“I won’t do that, Dean,” his younger brother pleaded a few days earlier, tears in his eyes. “Why can’t Ruby, Gabe and I just come with you?”

“Well, first of all, because I don’t know where I’m going yet, Sammy. And second, because someone has to stay here and be our underground railroad, yeah?”

“It’s a shitty thing of you to ask of me!” Sam shook his head vehemently.

“It’s the only way, Sammy. Look, maybe I fucked everything up. Maybe I didn’t. All I know is I can’t live in a world where Cas and Crowley are public enemy _numero uno_. And I can’t leave knowing that I’m fucking up your life too. So you stay here and help us best from a position of _power_.” 

He had believed his own little speech. He had believed Sam’s tears too and the tightening of his arms when they embraced goodbye. But somehow it didn’t hurt any less seeing what a great actor Sam had been, hearing all those hurtful words coming out of his mouth, on national television. Even if he knew they were lies.

In the eyes of the world, the Winchester brothers were no more.

He was packing up his essentials into Baby’s luxuriously spacious trunk when the text came. Dean fished the phone out from his back pocket and looked at the screen.

It read: _Manitou Beach. Come home._


	17. Chapter 17

Somewhere along the way, plans coalesced, and a mysterious name of a beach he’d never heard of before had turned into GPS coordinates, and eventually an address.

Dean had to admit that once he got over the initial shock of seeing him there, it made perfect sense for Balthazar to take him around the _Shamayim Spa_ , in the region of Manitou Beach. (‘Best mineral and salt mud and water north of the Dead Sea!’ the brochure insisted. Dean wasn’t sure why salty mud was a good thing, but whatever.) The suave angel really was in his element here, and if he hadn’t seen him in a collar he would never have been able to tell he was anything other than human. He was wearing the ‘uniform’ of the employees (both human and angelic) of loose fitting, flowing soft blues and greens, but of course his was lower cut about the neck (perks of being one of the managers, Dean supposed).

“As you can see, it’s very relaxed,” Balthazar explained. “We do not allow negativity into our sphere,” complete with an all-encompassing hand gesture. “If people desire that, then they are quite welcome to visit our sister establishment, _Sheol_ , but here our ultimate goal is serenity and relaxation for all our guests.”

“Yeah, seems pretty chill,” Dean agreed, trying to keep his eyes front and center as a particularly relaxed inhabitant walked past. Her hair falling over her shoulders in a copper mantle, swaying along to the rhythm set by her hips.

“She’s not spoken for,” Balthazar said, when Dean’s attention came back long enough. “Anna. I can set you up later, if you want.”

“W-wha-? No… man, I was just…”

“It’s okay, we understand here,” the angel winked at him, and Dean felt his face go red.

He had to admit that with Crowley’s resources (of course the devil had thought to squirrel funds out of the country) and Balthazar’s cunning, they’d made a nice place of it. Lucrative, too, if the little treatment menus he’d seen lying around for non-residents was anything to go by. A little oasis of calm where angels and - owners? partners? - could come to destress. There were pools, saunas, something called ‘hamams’, mud, smelly gooey things and backrubs a-plenty. Dean didn’t even know what half the things on the little list of treatments were, and no way in hell was he going in for a mani-pedi. Maybe a Swedish massage or something, those were manly enough, right?

“Whatever, man. If she’s up for a drink, I guess I’ll buy her one at the bar.”

“I’ll make sure your paths cross,” the angel promised. And Dean knew he would, because the damned twinkle in his eye said… well. Said lots.

Canada seemed pretty cool, and not just in the ‘average air temperature’ kind of way. Now he was finally up here, now all the work back in the States to sort out their underground resistance movement was in place… now Sam was left holding the fort, it made sense for their ‘break up’ as brothers to be cemented by him going north of the border into safety afforded by the more lax angel-laws. Now it was time for the lawyers to do their slow, sneaky, propaganda and culture-change thing, and he could retire to run the private security over the two establishments.

Not how he imagined his dotage, really, but it probably beat getting shot on the job, didn’t it? Ending up with some shitty-ass desk job and pension; Dean shuddered at the very thought of it.

“We also have to show you the restaurant,” Balthazar went on, walking him past something that could best be described as a bunch of people in lycra standing in unnaturally still positions whilst calming music played and burning incense hit the back of his throat. “It’s honestly got _the_ best seafood chef in the world, bar none. I hired him personally.”

“Uhm, sure. But does it still do burgers and steak?”

“...if you must…”

“Awesome.”

***

One of the perks of owning a luxury and angel-friendly spa was that Crowley and Castiel had free rein over any of the amenities they could want. They had private rooms dedicated only to them, and an infinite supply of anything you could possibly need to detox, retox, exfoliate or lubricate. 

Currently, Crowley’s angel was spread out over a large marble slab with his head pillowed on his hands. His beautiful black wings were out - unbound - and fluttering from time to time to the relaxing music. His expression was one of lax bliss, and he purred at the slightest, solicitous touch.

“Are you ready?” Crowley asked.

Cas nodded lazily, beaming up at his lover. “Always.”

The special candles were all lined up on the table beside them, burning happily away. It was hard to call them wax, because they were really chilled oils specially designed for application to skin and feather, so they wouldn’t need scraping off, after. He picked the master candle up and (as the instructor had told him before) tilted it to dribble a hot, fat blob between the angel’s shoulder blades. He knew it was designed to be just the right temperature to sting and then soften into a malleable dollop (he’d tested it on himself before he’d dream of doing it to Cas), and while the puddle was solidifying slowly he pushed one of the smaller candles into it. 

“Oh… oh yes… I like that, my love,” Cas crooned happily, his toes curling and unfurling. 

“Does it sting too much?”

“No… just enough. You could do it a little lower, next time…”

Crowley brushed back Cas’ hair from his temple and placed a little kiss there. “Your wish is my command.”

The candle already in place was slowly melting down, the trails of hot, fragrant oil sliding down to dampen the downy feathers that lined the angel’s spine. It was pretty to look at, and would be even nicer to touch… in a moment. He dribbled the next drop closer and was gratified by the answering hiss and clench of muscles, sending the wings fluttering as Cas fought to stay still under the gentle attack. A second candle placed on. He worked the line down until the final one was placed in the very small of his angel’s back, with the trickle of oil from that one delicately trying to push between his cheeks. (Of course, the instructor had said, the oils were safe for internal as well as external application, but Crowley didn’t think he actually wanted to plug his angel’s hole with one, not the first time anyway.)

“Oh… it is very nice and warm,” Cas said, his beautiful eyes slitted like a happy kitten. “Tingly and melty. You should try this next.”

“I promise next time, you can do this to me,” Crowley replied, using the knuckles of one hand to slide up and down the angel’s warm flank. Whenever he moved, the little soft-pink rivers that were flowing over his skin hit another bump and spread out further, like hot ice forming over the surface of glass.

He leaned down and blew as warmly as he could, making the tendrils chase this way and that, trying to blanket the angel in the oil, and when he was sure he couldn’t resist a moment longer, he put his hands low on the angel’s waist - thumbs in the small of his back - and stroked slow-slow-slow up. Cas _moaned_ indecently and Crowley pressed in harder with his thumbs, chasing the curve of his spine and pushing at non-existent knots. He kneaded his way up to the angel’s neck and rubbed it carefully, lovingly, feeling the way he sighed into each touch and his name and ‘yes’ and ‘my love’ burbled out and… damn, how Crowley wanted him. 

But he was supposed to be pampering the angel, and driving them both to the edge of want before he caved. He’d found he liked the sensual aspect of play more than the violent, for the most part, and Castiel didn’t seem to have the slightest objection to being his marshmallow instead of his pincushion ninety percent of the time. 

“You know, you really are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever met,” he told him, not caring how besotted he sounded as his fingers went into the angel’s (currently unbound) wings. He slicked the pink stuff onto the first of the long flight feathers, brushing all of the barbs to lie straight. It made them glisten beautifully, giving the usually raven-black a sheen that was almost magpie. 

Crowley knew that rubbing down the quills and pressing into the place where they sprang would make Cas buck slowly, and now that the candles were burned down low enough he decided to risk it. Sure enough, Castiel writhed like a wanton under his fingertips, screwing at the table below him. It was an automatic reaction, and one he loved to provoke. “Like that, do you?” he purred.

“ _Yesssss_ ,” came the hushed response. “Harder, please, love.”

Before he obliged, he took a feather in each hand and slid his hands all the way from root to tip, tugging when he got to the very end, making sure Cas could feel it all the way to his balls. Cas whined in a very unbecoming and unsubmissive way, turning his head to pout.

It was a pretty pout. Very pretty. Crowley bent to kiss it into a smile. “Patience, my dove.”

“If you insist,” the angel replied and put his head back down. He did, however, do a little wriggle with his ass which was obviously intended as a come-hither. Sex-fiend, Crowley thought, and swatted at the behind idly, chuckling at him. Give them an inch and they take over the goddamn continental landmass.

Stop getting distracted, he said to himself. Ass later. Wings first. He dragged his fingers up and into the lovely mass, ruffling them up and undoing all his precise grooming. He knew Cas felt flustered any time his wings were less than perfect, and the little squawk of protest was worth it. Crowley liked to see his wings like his hair: tousled from tangling. But it was hard to do this from the ground, so he pushed up and sat low on Castiel’s thighs for better leverage, leaning forwards to blow out the remaining, flickering tongues of flame. In this position he was almost spread over the angel’s back and his hands found the strong arch of bone rising from his angel’s shoulders, so he could yank the feathers hard back into position. 

Cas liked that, if the purr he could feel in his chest was anything to go by. 

“ _Harder_ ,” Castiel purred again, trying to use his ass to distract Crowley. 

They were getting the oil all over Crowley’s special spa clothes, but it was worth it for the noise of glee when his fingers relented and found the glands near the base of the quills, and he _pushed_ until the angel was beating his wings between them furiously. Electric blue sparked between the feathers, and Crowley knew the angel was surging on his own little power trip and trying desperately to keep himself under control for him. Once they’d worked out he _could_ do it, it had become something of a game, unbinding him and pushing him until he was frenetic with the effort of staying under. 

Cas was humping the table as much as he could under his master’s weight, and Crowley knew what he wanted. The flimsy sheet blanketing his behind was cursory at best and easily cast aside, the spa-clothes quickly pushed out of the way, and Cas was always - always - ready for him. Fingers still worrying those little nerve bundles that made Castiel frantic, he pushed in easily. Every time, it felt wonderful. Every time, it felt like he belonged there, in that soft, welcoming heat. 

“ _My love_...”

A kiss to the ruffled, mussy hair, hands still on his wings and using them for purchase as he rocked his weight forwards and down, burying himself in his angel’s beautiful ass. “Yes, I know, I know…”

“I’m all yours,” Cas promised, and power sparked higher, tickling and stinging over Crowley’s fingers as he pulled and teased and snagged through the feathers.

“And I am yours…”

This position didn’t make it easy to go fast, or hard, but he didn’t need to. The calming music, the soft smells of oils and arousal, the thickness in the air, the feel of his angel both limp and then tensing under him… Crowley liked this, more than the chains he would occasionally indulge in to suit his angel’s darker fantasies. He liked to coast slowly up to the edge of bliss and then hold his lover right there, right there balanced on the edge until he lost the ability to speak. Loved to kiss and tug and stroke his wings as he surged into him. If he timed it just right, he could make the angel bliss out and dance over that line just close to oblivion, could feel the electric power of heaven coursing through him…

Another push, another… sinking further into him with each little thrust, ruffling and smoothing and ruffling his wings, until the kisses turned into heavy panting by the angel’s ear, and his hands simply held on. Oh, it felt good. It felt good and Crowley was almost there, from the quivering, writhing, oiled angel under him. Yes, oh yes. Finesse was going out the window, and it was just natural, just _right_.

“ _Master_ ,” Castiel whispered, his voice reverent and loving, as he shuddered one more time and tensed around him.

Crowley smiled. It wasn’t because of a collar that Cas had called him Master. It was because Cas wanted him to be that.

And it no longer felt wrong to hear.

“Yes… you’re mine.”

Another shunt, and he found heaven, too.

***

“I’m sure they must be done by now,” Balthazar said, sounding almost bored, as he helped Dean get settled into the rooms that would be his. “We could wait for them in the lounge, if you like. Shall I leave you to freshen up?”

“Nah, I’m fresh,” Dean said, feeling anything but. But he didn’t want to be alone yet. Not until he could finally see those two idiot renegades and hold them in his arms. They had asked him to come ‘home’ and it just wouldn’t be much of a homecoming until he was fully reunited with Cas and Crowley. He wasn’t sure when he’d started thinking of them as his charges, but he must have been doing it for some time. “I want to say hello to the lovebirds first.”

Balthazar graced him with one of those smiles that was somehow benevolent yet predatory at the same time.

“I think you’ll find them both well tended to.”

The lounge was a circular space, symmetrically peppered by more and more circles. Some of the circles were small infinity pool fountains, while others were private booth, scattered throughout the area, giving their inhabitants at least a semblance of privacy, if not actual isolation. In what served as the eye and the omphalos of the space was a circular bar, serving refreshing libations of any combination of uppers and downers to suit the mood. Someone was playing the harp, which made Dean snicker. He was about to make a disparaging remark about angels and harps and clichés, when something soft and fluffy fluttered from one of the booths and mauled him.

“Dean! You’re here!”

It was Castiel, in a fluffy white robe, with matching slippers, ruffled bed-head, and smelling suspiciously like all the oils of Arabia had been mystically rubbed into every pore and orifice of his body.

Once Dean managed to extricate himself from the angel’s strong embrace, and move past the bright, sparkling eyes, and his entirely spa-appropriate get-up, he eventually focused on Crowley, smirking complacently behind his beloved.

“Hey Cas. It’s great to see you, man.” Dean couldn’t help but ruffle the angel’s already messy hair, much to his apparent disdain. “Crowley, you old dog,” Dean winked and took a step towards his long-time friend, pulling him into a tight hug.

Cas wrapped his arms and - suddenly - wings around both of the men, making Dean feel strangely flustered and causing Crowley to blush like a maiden and stammer incoherently.

“Er… so glad to finally see you, Winchester. How are you finding the place?”

“Lavish. Ridiculous. So…. very _you_.”

“Well, I have always been a man of wealth and taste,” Crowley shrugged, smugly.

“You didn’t just quote ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’” Dean shook his head and gave Crowley a friendly punch.

“Ah, but I did.”

“You have angels playing _harps_ ,” Dean finally pointed out, getting back to his thoughts of a few moments prior to being mauled by a blatantly post-coital angel.

“That’s my sister Anna,” Castiel said excitedly. 

“Oh, wonderful!” Balthazar piped in. “You should call her over so that she can welcome Dean too.”

“Great idea!” Castiel disappeared in a blink of an eye, leaving Dean feeling rather bewildered.

“What was that? Does he do that now? Is that normal?”

“Sometimes,” Crowley shrugged.

“He zaps out just like that?” Dean was beginning to look wildly disconcerted, so Balthazar quickly shoved a drink into his hand. 

“Compliments of the house!” the older angel winked. Damn, those angels were really good at the whole wish-fulfillment thing.

“Yeah, thanks, man.” Dean saluted both Crowley and Balthazar and took a long drink of the whiskey. He toed the floor sheepishly and eyed the bar from across the room. “Is your bartender even old enough to drink?”

“Oh, you mean Kevin?” Crowley chuckled. “He’s nineteen. Welcome to Canada!”

“Man, Canada’s laws really _are_ lax as fuck!” Dean took a swig of his drink, eyeballing the the kid who was aggressively shaking up something with more ingredients than should ever be allowed. Was that egg whites? Were you supposed to drink or _eat_ that? 

He was stirred from this deep contemplation by the reappearance of Castiel, accompanied by the copper-haired beauty from earlier on in Balthazar’s tour.

“Oh, _Anna_ ,” Dean suddenly choked, giving Balthazar a dirty look which bespoke of accusations of subtle betrayal. “She’s Cas’ sister!” he hissed at the blond angel and gave him a swift kick to the shins. Balthazar graced Dean with a self-satisfied smirk, accompanied by a condescending look which was nothing if not imperious. “Could’ve mentioned that.”

“Why? What would you have done?” the angel replied saucily, as Castiel and Anna approached the rest of the group.

“Dean, this is my sister, Anna,” Castiel beamed with pride.

“Cas went back for her a few weeks back,” Crowley added. “Eventually, it would be nice to get the whole family up. Gabriel too. You know, once Sam and I have completed our _business_.”

Dean extended his arm, uncertainly, and shook the female angel’s proffered hand. He reminded himself to school his thoughts, since angels were dicks who could read minds and emotions. Judging by the beauty’s grin, he was failing miserably.

“Dean,” she finally spoke with a soft smile. “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve gotten an earful from Castiel about you since I’ve been here. Dean Winchester this and Dean Winchester that. Only the other day, he practically blew out my eardrums on the angel radio. _Dean Winchester is saved!_ And now - here you are. I’m happy you were able to avoid arrest.”

Dean blushed to the roots of his hair. “Yeah, your brother saw to that,” he stammered.

“Damn it, darling,” Crowley frowned, feigning annoyance. “If you talk about him so much, why didn’t you want him for your Master when offered the opportunity? _Several_ times?”

“You know I only have eyes for you, love,” Cas immediately wrapped himself around his lover like a fluffy-robed boa constrictor. “I don’t want him for my Master,” he whispered into Crowley’s ear. “Although I wouldn’t mind having him for my Master-in-law.”

“Cas, you old yenta!” Crowley laughed, and with a wink towards Dean, spirited his angel away into one of the private booths. Doubtlessly for more post-coital canoodling and other such nauseating displays.

Balthazar had evaporated, thus completing his betrayal. Dean made a mental point to somehow get back at the angel for going out of his way to leave him utterly mortified. Nevermind the fact that the feathery bastard was technically his new boss. At least the whiskey was free.

“So, uh…” Dean stared at the girl, Anna, the angel who was Castiel’s sister. “I’d offer to buy you a drink, but I’m afraid your brother might smite me.”

“I don’t drink and I am perfectly capable of smiting you myself,” she said with a deadpan expression but a soft twinkle in her deep brown eyes.

Dean laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, you talk like him. Which is cool, ‘cuz I… uh… Well, you guys don’t look too much alike.”

“There is quite a bit of heterogeneity in our gene pool,” Anna replied, slipping her fingers through the curve of Dean’s arm and leading him out through the French doors and into the adjacent garden. 

Right, because that explained everything.

“Hetero… what?” Dean, who back in the day had been known to be quite the lothario, had apparently been rendered entirely lackluster when in the company of angels. He hated that about them. The damn feathery fuckers. With their eyes and their lips and their stupid ability to make you feel wanted. He shuffled along the gravelly path like a helpless marionette on Anna’s string.

“Heterogeneity,” she repeated with the patience of a saint. “It means a lot of genetic variability.”

Yup, he was entirely outclassed. 

She pressed closer. He thought her skin smelled like freshly baked apple pie. The entire situation was rigged and just utterly unfair.

“So, you don’t drink, and you don’t eat… What do you do for fun?”

“I play the harp.” She smiled knowingly, and Dean could not help but laugh.

“I play guitar a little. Maybe we can duet?”

“I’d like that very much,” she said, and he felt the soft pressure of her fingers linger along his forearm. “I sing too,” she added. Dean bet she had a really lovely singing voice, if her speaking voice was anything to go by.

“I have been known to give a mean shower concert myself,” Dean quipped.

“I’d love to hear it some time,” the angel said, her ivory skin unblemished by a single hint of blushing.

“My shower… concert?”

“Yes.”

Dean paused, his jade-green eyes seeking hers for any sign of dissembling or mockery, but finding none. He let his gaze travel down her long neck, his mind registering for the first time the absence of collar. The sun felt warm against his face and he smiled.

“Anna, do you wanna see my car?”

***

Postscript:

Over the next few years, _Shamayim Spa_ became a hub of activism focused on aiding the angels who needed to be liberated from bondage, and campaigning for angel rights. With enough momentum from their grassroots movement, Crowley and Sam managed to get an amendment to _Legem Angelorum_ onto the ballot. The amendment made it illegal to sell, purchase, and own angels, as well as classifying any involuntary mutilation of an angel as a felony. Under the amended law, any angel who was previously owned by a human would be considered emancipated and free to stay or go as they please.

The amendment was approved by public referendum with a very narrow margin of victory: 52% in favor and 48% against. 

After their emancipation, a staggering portion of the angels chose to stay with the humans who were previously their owners. Those angels who were happy to leave eventually made their way up to Manitou Beach, where it is told they worshipped Balthazar as their Golden Guru.

The emancipation amendment is to this day known as the Winchester Doctrine, in honor of Senator Sam Winchester who had co-authored it.

Crowley, the Doctrine’s other co-author, shirked notoriety. When asked about it during an interview years later, he simply replied, “Love was reward enough.”


End file.
